Empress Atossa and The Story of The First Mastectomy Ever

Empress Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus the Great and the beloved wife of mighty king Darius, was on a life-or-death fight with a brutal enemy. For this most influential queen of Persia ever, the tormentor wasn’t a rival from some hostile country across the border. There was something within her. It was a terrible crab-like growth clinging to her chest, throbbing and ticking, piercing its brutal fingers deep into her raw flesh.

No pills or portions did any magic. The last weapon she had in her armor was a razor-sharp sword. And she did something only a Queen can do. In a desperate, yet heroic attempt to end the unebbing pains and unending agony, she handed over the blade to her personal physician Democedes and ordered him to chop the breast off without showing any mercy. According to Herodotus the historian, Democedes was the most skillful physician of his time. Trembling and terrified, and with wavering hands, the slave physician tentatively performed the first-ever recorded mastectomy (removal of the breast) in the history known.

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