ABSTRACT John Keats trained as a surgeon at Guy’s Hospital from 1815 to 1817. However, despite being qualified, he never practised medicine. His close friend Charles Brown recounted Keats’s account of his ‘last operation’, which involved ‘opening a man’s temporal artery’. The account raises certain questions: why was Keats opening a man’s temporal artery; why did this operation – which presumably Keats did not know would be his ‘last’ when it took place – stick so clearly in his mind; and did this medical decision have any impact on the personal decision he took to leave medicine? Using records from the London Metropolitan Archives, medical notes from manuscripts maintained by Keats and other surgical students at Guy’s Hospital, and published works by eminent surgeons of the day including Astley Cooper and John Bell, we show that Keats was treating a patient with head injuries for his ‘last operation’. The essay further explores the significance this operation had for Keats, taking account of his father’s unexpected death from a head wound, and suggests that this particular procedure, with its emotional resonances, brought into focus for him an aspect of his temperament that left him uniquely unsuited to practise medicine, and strengthened his conviction to leave the medical profession.

中文翻译：

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约翰济慈和颞动脉

摘要 约翰济慈于 1815 年至 1817 年在盖伊医院接受外科医生培训。然而，尽管获得了资格，但他从未行医。他的密友查尔斯·布朗 (Charles Brown) 讲述了济慈关于他“最后一次手术”的描述，其中包括“打开男人的颞动脉”。这个叙述提出了一些问题：为什么济慈要打开一个男人的颞动脉？为什么这次手术——当时济慈大概不知道这将是他的“最后一次”手术——为什么会在他的脑海中如此清晰地印记？这个医疗决定对他离开医学的个人决定有什么影响吗？使用伦敦大都会档案馆的记录、济慈和盖伊医院其他外科学生保存的手稿的医学笔记，以及当时著名外科医生（包括阿斯特利·库珀和约翰·贝尔）的出版作品，我们展示了济慈正在为一名头部受伤的患者进行“最后一次手术”的治疗。这篇文章进一步探讨了这个手术对济慈的意义，考虑到他父亲因头部受伤而意外死亡，并建议这个特殊的手术及其情感共鸣使他成为他性格的一个方面，使他与众不同不适合行医，坚定了他离开医学界的信念。