Nautilus

We Spoke to the Surgeon Who Gave a Man His Penis Back

Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” (1490)Flickr

In May this year, Curtis Cetrulo, a plastic-reconstructive surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, performed the first penis transplant in the United States. Previously his patient, Thomas Manning, 64, had most of his penis amputated to stem penis cancer, a rare form of the disease. Since the transplant, Manning has received a wave of media attention, and been a remarkably good sport about it. After the amputation, he told the New York Times, “I couldn’t have a relationship with anybody. You can’t tell a woman, ‘I had a penis amputation.’”

Cetrulo is thankful that Manning has been so good-natured about the media attention . “He’s doing it because he wants people

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