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"The best fuzzy rules, the best knowledge, deal with the turning points of the system. If a race-car driver teaches you how to drive, you don't need him to show you how to drive on the straightaway. It's how he handles the curves that matters."
- Bart Kosko

Automaton Steam Surgeon  
  Mechanized surgery.  

This is the earliest fictional reference to the idea of a robotic or autonomous doctor or surgeon.

Immediately upon their arrival, Prince Ferdinand and Lord Edmund had their wounds dressed by the automaton steam surgeon belonging to the prison, which, being properly arranged and wound up, staunched the blood, spread the plasters, and affixed the bandages with as much skill as though it had done nothing but walk a hospital all its life. As soon as these operations were performed, the prisoners were locked up in separate cells, and left to meditate upon their situations.
Technovelgy from The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, by Jane Webb Loudon.
Published by Not known in 1828
Additional resources -

Compare to robot surgery from Secret of the Buried City (1939) by John Russell Fearn and robot surgeon from The Bicentennial Man (1976) by Isaac Asimov.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century
  More Ideas and Technology by Jane Webb Loudon
  Tech news articles related to The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century
  Tech news articles related to works by Jane Webb Loudon

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