There are many medical reasons that can cause black stools that are tarry with a foul smell, but sometimes dark stools are caused by eating certain foods or taking iron supplements. However, black stools can also be a result of bleeding, and the darker color indicates that the blood could be coming from a point in the upper gastrointestinal tract.
Gertrude Levandowski survived a 96-hour procedure at a Chicago hospital to remove a giant ovarian cyst; the longest surgery. The second longest surgery ever was 40 hours long and that was to remove 6 limbs from a 8 limed baby in India. But the most common longest surgery is spinal cord surgery it is a 14 hour surgery.
The first open heart surgery was not performed by Vivien Thomas and Alfred Blalock (in 1944), as mentioned in the previous post. In 1902 Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill performed the first open heart surgery in the Western Hemisphere by suturing a stab wound in a young boy's heart. The surgery occurred in Montgomery, Alabama.