The concept and procedure was rapidly accepted throughout the world and apart from rare challenges by a few independent thinkers, Dr. Halsted’s operation was the standard procedure when I arrived here in 1952. It was all so easy — lump, biopsy, radical mastectomy. And, in retrospect, so wrong. Surgeons had been rendered ideoleptic — literally, chained by an idea. In 1955, I attended my first American College of Surgeons meeting and witnessed the only breach of decorum I have ever seen there in what are now 32 meetings, when George Crile was hissed by some as he advocated lumpectomy. Such was the power of the taboo.
