Gynaecologists and the treatment of Garibaldi's ankle wound.

The hero of Italian Unification, Guiseppe Garibaldi, sustained a bullet wound to the ankle that caused an international sensation at the time as various surgeons from Italy, France, Russia and Great Britain vied to manage the injury. In particular the question was whether the bullet was still present. Eventually Nélaton from France won the race by the use of a porcelain-tipped probe which stained with the presence of lead. The actual extraction of the bullet was with the use of an expandable tent. It seems probable that Dr. James Marion Sims, the well-known American gynaecologist, supplied tents of the seaweed Laminaria digitata through Nélaton, to open up the wound and allow easy extraction of the bullet. Thus an unknown gynaecological connection seems to be part of an historical cause célèbre.