BOVIE,WILLIAM,T. AND ELECTROSURGERY

For thousands of years human beings have used heat in the form of caut ery to treat trauma and disease. By the late nineteenth century, as te chnology advanced, heat could be produced by electric current. In 1920 William T. Bovie, an eccentric inventor with a doctorate in plant phy siology, developed an innovative electrosurgical unit that Harvey Gush ing, the founder of modern neurosurgery introduced to clinical practic e. The Bovie unit passes high frequency alternating current into the b ody allowing the current to cut or coagulate. After 75 years this basi c device remains a fundamental tool in the practice of surgery.