Does the name Alfred Hitchcock ring a bell?
Now, meet a different Alfred Hitchcock, from Vermont.

Alfred Hitchcock was born in Westminster on this day in 1813. He had no connection to the future director and filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, instead, this Alfred Hitchcock would become a noted surgeon and author.

He was the first man to "perform the operation of oesophagotomy." Such operations were performed when something obstructed the esophagus. Hitchcock would make a strategic incision and remove the object.

Hitchcock also was among the first to develop surgery for correcting a strangulated hernia. Until this innovative surgery, many had died when these hernias cut off circulation to a vital organ.

Diagram courtesy clevelandclinic.org.

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