TAILIEUCHUNG - Ebook A history of surgery (3E): Part 2
(BQ) Part 2 book “A history of surgery” has contents: The surgery of warfare, breast tumours, cutting for the stone, thyroid and parathyroid, thoracic and vascular surgery, organ transplantation, and other contents. | 9 The surgery of warfare Mankind has always been subject to injury; the earliest surgeons were no doubt those men and women who were particularly skilled in binding up the contusions, lacerations, fractures, perforations and eviscerations of their fellows (Figure ). Since man is undoubtedly the most vicious and aggressive of all animals, much of this trauma was inflicted in battle, and warfare has therefore played an important part in the development of wound management. Indeed, it has been said that the only thing to benefit from war is surgery. Figure Achilles bandages the arm of Patroclus during the Trojan Wars 1200 bc. (From a painting on an ancient Greek vase.) Until the introduction of gunpowder into warfare in the 14th century, war wounds were inflicted mainly by knives, swords, spears, arrows and various blunt weapons such as the mace and cudgel. The sharp weapons would produce p enetrating and lacerating injuries, and the blunt instruments would produce severe contusions. The early surgeons well recognised that some injuries were going to prove almost invariably fatal. These comprised penetration of a vital structure, such as a perforating wound of the skull, chest or abdomen, or haemorrhage from a major blood vessel. However, if the victim survived the initial injury, he was very likely to live. This was because these lacerated and contused wounds produced little tissue destruction and thus allowed the natural powers of the body’s healing to cure the victim. So the surgeon became skilled at dressing and bandaging wounds and splinting fractures. The various ointments employed, although probably usually ineffective, at least did little harm. Haemorrhage would be treated by pressure on the wound or the use of the cautery. The technique of tying the bleeding artery, a device introduced by the Alexandrian surgeons around 250 bc and described by the Roman writer Celsus in the 1st century An, appeared to have been forgotten. The medieval surgical .
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