History of Surgery



There can be no doubt that the first surgeons were men and women who bound up lacerations , contutions , fractures , impalements , and eviscerations to which man has been subjected to ever since he appeared on earth.

The earliest surgeries were horrifying with no anaesthesia , no concept of asepsis and involved only splinting cutting tying and controlling haemorrages. The 15th century saw the dreaded practice of cauterisation of wound with boiling oil as advocated by Italian surgeon Giovanni da Vigo(1460-1525) . This barbaric treatment made matters worse by increasing necrosis of the wound.

The first scientific treatment in surgery comes from the work of French military surgeon Ambroise Pare(1510-1590) who revolutionised surgery by introducing dressing for wounds and ligatures for haemorrage. The Fabric of the Human body by Andrea Vesalius(1514-1564) also changes the face of surgical anatomy.

In 1846 William Morton ( 1819 -1868) a dentist introduced and demonstrated Ether Anaesthesia heralding the age of painless surgical practice.



Dr William Morton demonstrating Ether Anaesthesia Courtesy: National Library of Medicine

The work of French chemist Louis Pastuer ( 1822 - 1868) demonstrated link between wound suppuration and microbes.It was however Joseph Lister (1827 -1912) who then an young professor at Edinburgh performed the first operation under sterile conditions in 1865.

So from 1870s onwards the scene was set for the enormous changes that gradually evolved into modern day rigorous aseptic surgery.