The surgeon was not feeling well, but he tried to make light of things.

While prepping for that afternoon's operation, he glanced over at the nurses and cracked a joke.

Ladies, I trust you're all as comfortable as I am.

But if anyone laughed, it must have been nervous laughter at best.

The date was February 15th, 1921, and this was a landmark surgery for Evan O'Neill Kane.

He lived and worked in Kane, Pennsylvania, which was not a coincidence.

His father had founded the town decades before and modestly named it after himself.

Evan Kane, then age 60, was no less egotistical.

Whenever he finished operating on a patient,

he would tattoo his initial next to the incision,

a tiny Morse code K.

Dash.

Kane was nevertheless a beloved surgeon in town,

and over his 37 years of practice,

he'd saved countless lives.

This included an incredible 4,000 appendicitis cases.

Still, he'd never faced an appendix operation quite like this one.

In the operating theater, he propped himself up on pillows. A nurse held cane's head for support and he checked the mirrors in the lighting

to make sure he could see everything he needed to. Three backup doctors stood by, including

Kane's brother, ready to jump in if something went wrong.

Meanwhile, Kane prepped the naked abdomen, swabbing it with brown iodine and alcohol. Then he injected

NOVA cane to numb the sight. By this point, the tensions must have been excruciating.

...