The first successful surgical management of a ruptured tubal pregnancy occurred in April 1883, when the British surgeon Robert Lawson Tait performed a laparotomy and ligated the ruptured tube and the broad ligament. At a time when ectopic pregnancy was associated with greater mortality.

Early detection of ectopic pregnancy with the advent of ultrasonography and timely surgical management decreased deaths due to ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

By the 1920s, laparotomy and ligation of the bleeding vessels with the removal of the affected tube had become the standard of care, and it remained so until the late 1970s when operative laparoscopy and salpingostomy replaced laparotomy and salpingectomy.