In the operating rooms, doctors had to wear black, unwashed overcoats stained with blood and bacteria from previous surgeries. When patients were to receive surgery, doctors would tie them down to an operating bed or hold them down with strong men.
However, these practices occurred way back in history when medicine wasn’t as advanced as it is now. Most patients had to endure pain, but most committed suicide to prevent getting surgery. Traditionally, surgeons only found a way to change the patient’s mind, rather than ease the pain in the body. Some of the anesthetics they used were liquor, opium, or mesmerism (hypnosis).
The very first surgery was the drilling/cutting (trephining) of a small hole in the brain. This surgical procedure started in 3000 BC and continued until the middle ages. There was no explanation why they performed trephinations, but some say they did it to get rid of spirits. Countries like Europe, Africa, and South Africa also practiced this, and in most of the procedures, some of the patients survived because the skull was able to heal. In ancient Egypt, they also trephinated in order to treat migraines.
In South America, they used stones such as jadeite, quartz, and many more stones to cover cavities. Ancient Greeks performed surgical procedures such as bloodletting (the surgical removal of blood from a patient), draining the lungs of patients, and setting broken bones. The ancient Roman physician Galen was influenced and carried on with trephining, amputations, and eye surgery. By the end, he spent three years as a doctor from Roman gladiators to emperor surgeons. In 900 AD, a famous Islamic surgeon named Al-Zahrawi emerged. He spent his time writing books that were about orthopedics, noses, ears, throat surgery, and military surgery, which influenced Islamic and Western practitioners.
From the middle ages to the 18th century, surgeons were known as travelers and really never stayed in one stop. Surgeons didn’t go to school and would shadow their apprenticeships and observe them. They performed minor producers including tooth extraction, bloodletting, and treating war wounds. In 1543, Andrea Vesalius was the first to suggest hands-on surgery, human dissection. With Vesalius’s knowledge about human anatomy, he corrected the ancient Greeks and Romans about their ideal way of surgery. Ambrose Paré, a French army surgeon, created a treatment for gunshot wounds which included rose oil, egg yolk, and turpentine. Pare also created resurgence (tying off) of blood vessels for amputation, but he did to stop hemorrhages (blood loss).
In modern surgery, physicians and surgeons tried different researchers on innovating new ways to prevent their patients from receiving painful procedures. In the late 1800s, anesthesia became widespread in surgery, and patients feared less in receiving surgery. In 1865, Joseph Lister invented “literism,” the removal of bacteria from instruments, wounds, and the air above the patients. Many surgeons refused to believe Joseph’s germ theory because he had used carbolic acid to sterilize the materials. By the 20th century, the prevention of bacteria spreading (asepsis) gained attention. Nowadays, physicians wear white coats and clean operating tables and beds.
Sources
“History of Surgery.” Hartford Stage, 11 Oct. 2016, www.hartfordstage.org/stagenotes/ether-dome/history-of-surgery/.
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