The first recorded successful appendectomy was on December 6, 1735 at St. George's Hospital in London, when French surgeon Claudius Amyand described the presence of a perforated appendix within the hernial sac of an 11-year-old boy who had undergone successful herniotomy.
In 1889 in New York City, Charles McBurney described the presentation and pathogenesis of appendicitis accurately and developed the teaching that an early appendectomy was the best treatment to avoid perforation and peritonitis.