John Mankey Riggs belongs to the medical record as a figure whose work changed what could be treated.
The record lists John Mankey Riggs as American dentist (1811-1885).
John Mankey Riggs was born at Connecticut in 1811. His recorded nationality is United States.
Anaesthesia, antisepsis and germ theory arrived within fifty years and made modern surgery possible for the first time.
Medicine advances against a moving target, and its successes are counted in lives rather than papers.
That the work was done from United States matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
John Mankey Riggs died in 1885, aged 74. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.
