Mitral valve repair surgery is much more technically demanding and may involve higher risk. Occasionally, the mitral valve is abnormal from birth (congenital). More often the mitral valve becomes abnormal with age (degenerative) or as a result of rheumatic fever. In rare instances the mitral valve can be destroyed by infection or a bacterial endocarditis. Mitral regurgitation may also occur as a result of ischemic heart disease (coronary artery disease) or non-ischemic heart disease (dilated cardiomyopathy). In 1923 Dr. Elliott Cutler of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital performed the world’s first successful heart valve surgery – a mitral valve "repair". The patient was
History of beliefs about the human body about what he proposed as the discovery of the clitoris, stated that, "like a penis, "if you touch it, you will find it rendered a little harder and oblong to such a degree that it shows itself as a sort of male member." (There was much debate on the actual discovery of the clitoris between male European scientists and many claimed to have described it first: by dissecting the human body and writing down what was observed these European scientists could claim in their idea of the body that they had discovered or created new knowledge.) This one-sex model was