The first reported partial pancreaticoduodenectomy was performed by the Italian surgeon Alessandro Codivilla in 1898, but the patient only survived 18 days before succumbing to complications. Early operations were compromised partly because of mistaken beliefs that people would die if their duodenum were removed, and also, at first, if the flow of pancreatic juices stopped. Later it was thought, also mistakenly, that the pancreatic duct could simply be tied up without serious adverse effects; in fact, it will very often leak later on. In 1907–1908, after some more unsuccessful operations by other surgeons, experimental procedures were tried on corpses by French surgeons.