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Historical background The history of medical education in Scotland is quite well known. It is largely told as a story of universities, of high standards and of an education mainly available to men from ordinary backgrounds who became general practitioners and servants of the British Empire. This paper asks whether there was anything peculiarly Scottish about the medical education to be had north of the border. Discussion The answer to this is yes. The paper shows there was a commitment among Scottish teachers to present medicine as a practical art based on general principles that brought the subject together in all its aspects, notably uniting internal medicine and surgery. Conclusion Modern academic medicine has ironed out these differences and medical education in Scotland today is much the same as western medical education in excellent universities anywhere in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the evolution of surgical knife. It says that surgical knife dates back to the Mesolithic period when flint knives were used as scrapers to cut through the skull to eliminate demons that were believed to have caused epilepsy, melancholy and headaches. In the 14th century, French surgeon Ambroise Paré contributed to the advancement of surgery when he refined and improved surgical instruments. Stainless steel replaced nickel- and chromium-plated carbon steel used in making surgical knife in the 20th century.

Objectives: To identify the most cited articles in general surgery published by Brazilian authors., Introduction: There are several ways for the international community to recognize the quality of a scientific article. Although controversial, the most widely used and reliable methodology to identify the importance of an article is citation analysis., Methods: A search using the Institute for Scientific Information citation database (Science Citation Index Expanded) was performed to identify highly cited Brazilian papers published in twenty-six highly cited general surgery journals, selected based on their elevated impact factors, from 1970 to 2009. Further analysis was done on the 65 most-cited papers., Results: We identified 1,713 Brazilian articles, from which nine papers emerged as classics (more than 100 citations received). For the Brazilian contributions, a total increase of about 21-fold was evident between 1970 and 2009. Although several topics were covered, articles covering trauma, oncology and organ transplantation were the most cited. The majority of classic studies were done with international cooperation., Conclusions: This study identified the most influential Brazilian articles published in internationally renowned general surgery journals.