History Lesson

SURGERY IN THE EARLY 1800'S IN LONDON:

Surgery in the early 1800s was dangerous and painful. Surgeons had to work quickly. At the Battle of Borodino in 1812 Napoleon's surgeon, Dubois, amputated 200 limbs in 24 hours. There was no way of completely relieving the pain suffered by the patient, nor was it possible to replace blood by transfusion although blood vessels could be tied with ligatures to stop the bleeding.
Sometimes operations went dreadfully wrong. Robert Liston was a famous London surgeon who once amputated a leg in two-and-a-half minutes but worked so fast that he accidentally cut off his patient's testicles as well. During another high-speed amputation, Liston amputated the fingers of his assistance and slashed the coat of a spectato who, fearing that he had been stabbed, dropped dead with fright. Worse was to follow. Both the assistant and the patient died of infection caught during the operation or in the hospital ward.
Infection was the greatest danger to patients after an operation. Germs might enter the wound and cause blood poisoning. Almost half of all patients who had leg amputations died from blood poisoning. One famous surgeon, James Simpson, said that "the man laid out on the operating tables of our hospitals has more chances of death than the English soldier on the fields of Waterloo".


This is what I'm studying in History. The Victorian Medicine and Health times. I just thought it was interesting. Hope you all enjoy learning something new today! :)