The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test: an allegory of surgical progress.

The article provides information on the replication of surgical innovation process as portrayed in Tom Wolfe's novel, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". It discusses the surgical invention in the past including that from Max Nitze, Thomas Edison and George Kelling. The surgical procedures continue to develop as older modalities are applied in unconventional ways such as the approaches of natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) and laparoendoscopic single-site surgery (LESS).