Surgeon and his operating kit

With the advent of photography in 1839, doctors started having their portraits done. Some doctors posed with a skull, to indicate their knowledge of life and death. Others chose books, or, as shown in this circa 1845 daguerreotype, medical instruments. With this kind of surgical kit, doctors could perform most standard operations, except for amputations and trephination - burring a hole through the skull.

Credit: Dr. Stanley B. Burns