Laparotomy
surgical procedure involving small incisions through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity
A laparotomy is a surgical procedure involving a surgical incision through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity. It is also known as a celiotomy.
Origins and history
The first successful documented laparotomy was performed without anesthesia by Ephraim McDowell in 1809 in Danville, Kentucky. On July 13, 1881, George E. Goodfellow treated a miner outside Tombstone, Arizona Territory, who had been shot in the abdomen with a .32-caliber Colt revolver. Goodfellow was able to operate on the man nine days after he was shot, when he performed the first laparotomy to treat a bullet wound.
Terminology
The term comes from the Greek word λᾰπάρᾱ (lapara) 'the soft part of the body between the ribs and hip, flank' and the suffix -tomy, from the Greek word τομή (tome) '(surgical) cut'.
In diagnostic laparotomy (most often referred to as an exploratory laparotomy and abbreviated ex-lap), the nature of the disease is unknown, and laparotomy is deemed the best way to identify the cause.
In therapeutic laparotomy, a cause has been identified (e.g. colon cancer) and the operation is required for its therapy.
Usually, only exploratory laparotomy is considered a stand-alone surgical operation.
“Laparotomy” enters the record as surgical procedure involving small incisions through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Laparotomy, surgical and procedure can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1130374. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1809 and 1881.
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This entry incorporates text from “Laparotomy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.