Browsing through Alan Moore's From Hell, looked up Ripper-related stuff on the net, came across the Wiki article on Robert Liston, this made me laugh:

Amputated the leg in under 2¹⁄₂ minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene, they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene, they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He also slashed through the coat tails of a distinguished surgical spectator, who was so terrified that the knife had pierced his vitals he dropped dead from fright.
That was the only operation in history with a 300 percent mortality.