Undated photograph of Billroth with his ten assistants. Christian Albert Theodor Billroth (April 26, 1829 - February 6, 1894) was a Prussian-born Austrian surgeon and amateur musician. As a surgeon, he is generally regarded as the founding father of modern abdominal surgery. He was directly responsible for a number of landmarks in surgery, including the first esophagectomy (1871), the first laryngectomy (1873), and most famously, the first successful gastrectomy (1881) for gastric cancer. He was a talented amateur pianist and violinist. As a musician, he was a close friend and confidant of Johannes Brahms, a leading patron of the Viennese musical scene, and one of the first to attempt a scientific analysis of musicality. He met Brahms in the 1860s, when the quickly became close friends and shared musical insights. Brahms frequently sent Billroth his original manuscripts in order to get his opinion before publication, and Billroth participated as a musician in trial rehearsals of many of Brahms' chamber works before their first performances. Brahms dedicated his first two string quartets, Opus 51, to him. He died in 1894 at the age of 64.