History Black period of surgery notes

  • BEFORE DISCOVERY OF ANAESTHETICS PATIENTS DIED OF BLOOD LOSS (BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS DISCOVERED IN 19010) SHOCK AND POST OPERATIVE INFECTION.

  • Only external surgery could be generally performed at this time.

  • ANAETHETICS were discovered:

  • 1842: Crawford W Long (America) used ether as an anaesthetic while operating on a neck tumour (but did not publish details of his operation).

  • 1845: Horace Wells (America) tried unsuccessfully to demonstrate that laughing gas would allow him to extract a tooth painlessly.

  • 1846: Dr JC Warren (America) removed a tumour from the neck of Gilbert Abbott using ether.

  • 1846: Robert Liston (Britain) removed a leg using ether - 'this Yankee dodge'.

  • 1847: James Simpson (Britain) discovered chloroform.

  • 1884: Carl Koller (Germany) discovered that cocaine is a local anaesthetic.

ONCE anaethetics were discovered ad used a black period of surgery occured; as patients were knocked out internal sugery could now be attempted without the patient protesting of pain etc.

UNFORTUNATELY antiseptics had not been discovered so the patients frequently died from post op infections (conditions in the surgery theatre were tr=errible, the doctors didnt bother to wash hands, coughed and wore bloody apros as a badge of honour

USE of antiseptics cut down the mortality rate and post infection rate that caused so many deaths

ANTISEPTICS became more widely used as time went on, examples of their effect are:

1847: Ignaz Semmelweiss (Hungary) cut the death rate in his maternity ward

by making the doctors wash their hands in calcium chloride solution before

treating their patients.

1854: Standards of hospital cleanliness and nursing care rosie rapidly under

the influence of Florence Nightingale.

1865: Joseph Lister (Scotland) - basing his ideas on Pasteur's Germ Theory

cut the death rate among his patients from 46 to 15 per cent by spraying

instruments and bandages with a 1-in-20 solution of carbolic acid.

1890: Beginnings of aseptic surgery - surgeons started boiling their instruments to sterilise them - WS Halstead (America) started using rubber gloves when operating - German surgeons started to use face masks.