Self-surgery is the act of performing a surgical procedure on oneself. It can be an act taken in extreme circumstances out of necessity, an attempt to avoid embarrassment, legal action, or financial costs, or a rare manifestation of a psychological disorder.
Genitals
These surgeries are generally the least life-threatening. Sometimes people resort to self-surgery in the form of castration in an attempt to control their sexual urges, or due to gender dysphoria.
Boston Corbett, the soldier who killed Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth, had performed self-surgery earlier in life. He castrated himself with a pair of scissors to avoid the temptation of prostitutes. Afterwards, he went to a prayer meeting and ate a meal before going for medical treatment.
Abdominal
Successful abdominal self-surgery is extremely rare. A few well-publicized cases have found their way into the medical literature.
- On February 15, 1921, Evan O'Neill Kane carried out his own appendectomy in an attempt to prove the efficacy of local anesthesia for such operations. He is believed to have been the first surgeon to have done so. However, Kane previously performed appendectomies (on others) with local anesthetic. In 1932, he performed an even more risky self-operation of repairing his inguinal hernia at the age of 70.
- In August 1944, Jock McLaren, an Australian Army officer, conducted an appendectomy on himself without anaesthesia of any kind, using only a pocket knife and a mirror. He then proceeded to suture himself with what he had on hand - "jungle fibre". Though not qualified in human medicine or surgery, McLaren had considerable knowledge of veterinary medicine.
- On April 30, 1961, Leonid Rogozov removed his own infected appendix at the Soviet Novolazarevskaja Research Station in Antarctica, as he was the only physician on staff. The operation lasted one hour and 45 minutes. Rogozov later reported on the surgery in the Information Bulletin of the Soviet Antarctic Expedition.
- A student who had already performed a self-castration was the subject of a 1979 case report by Kalin. The student, some time after the self-castration, also attempted to reduce the activity of his adrenal glands with an injection of bovine serum albumin, luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone and Freund's adjuvant. When this produced an abscess at the injection site, the student resorted to self-surgery. His psychiatrist reported: