Paleopathologists (a person who studies diseases of fossil plants and animals) have proven that ancient people operated on people before they even knew how to write.
There is evidence of Prehistoric operations which took pieces from the skull called trepanning. They believe this performance may have been part of magico-religious ceremonies.
Egyptians were the first to have written records of medicine and surgery. People in the fifth century wrote about surgical fractures, hemorrhoids and head injuries. Surgery was a sucsefull treatment and cured many diseases and fractures. Until 1876, there was no anasthesia (sleeping gas) so they had to tie the patient down while cutting their skin.
In World War One, surgeons created new ways to treat the wounded. The discovery of the X-ray by a German doctor named Wilhem Konrad Routine made it easier to find fractures and other injuries.
In World War Two, army surgeons learned that the removal of dead tissue could make a better way to get to the problem. When surgeons faced a difficult problem, they took out dead tissue and took care of it. Many people also see a down side to surgery too, some people get worse and some people even die.
Sources
Metacrawler
Encyclopedia Americana
Internet Search on Surgery
Encyclopedia Britanica