Consider Yourself Extremely Lucky To Be Living In The Age Of Modern Medicine

Ancient India was advanced in many fields, including plastic surgery. In the fifth and sixth centuries BC, Sushruta was an active surgeon and considered the “father of plastic surgery.” He taught about nasal reconstructions, using a basic form of rhinoplasty. It is unknown if he ever successfully performed this surgery, but his writings provided extensive detail. He also wrote Sushruta Samhita, a text that covered all the medical knowledge India had at the time on over 1000 illnesses.

Ephraim McDowell was an American physician in the early 1800s that was known worldwide for two cases, one in which he removed bladder stones from a patient. This patient was James Polk, a 17-year-old who would later serve as president of the United States. In his second well-known case McDowell removed a 22 pound tumor from a woman previously thought to be pregnant. She went on to live for 32 more years, and McDowell went on to be remembered as the “father of the ovariotomy.”

Claudius Galenus was one of the most prominent physicians and surgeons in ancient Greece. Most of his work was concerned with the human body, most of which he determined through animal dissections. However, even though not all of his findings were accurate, many of his notions were not challenged for centuries. Despite his findings being challenged later, his book is one of the most significant anatomy publications. 

Dominique Jean Larrey is considered the first modern surgeon in the military, with innovations such as deciding it was more effective to have medical tents near the frontlines. Before this, wounded soldiers often died on their way to hospitals that were miles away from the battlefield. Larrey created a transportation system for the wounded called the “flying ambulance,” horse drawn carriages that transported the wounded. Eventually Larrey became highly respected by his army and its enemie

Ignaz Semmelweis is one of the most mocked contributors to modern medicine, despite the importance of his belief that doctors need to wash their hands and operate in sanitary conditions. Today he is known as the “savior of mothers.” Semmelweirs suggested that there was a direct correlation between infection and puerperal fever within obstetrical clinics. He insisted that washing away the germs on doctor’s hands before operations would lower mortality rates from 18 to 1 percent. 

Soon after William Morton introduced anesthesia in 1846, physicians including George Hayward wondered if it could be used in major surgeries. When Morton finally revealed sulfuric ether as anesthesia’s core ingredient, George Hayward became the first to use anesthesia to perform a successful amputation. The surgery was performed on Alice Mohan, a 21-year-old girl who needed her leg amputated due to tuberculosis; she awoke after the surgery with no knowledge that it was already completed. <

Jean Civiale invented the lithotrite, a tool used to improve surgery on kidney stones. The lithotrite made surgery much less painful by simply crushing the stone without having to remove it. Civiale was also the founder of the first urology center in the world, at Necker Hospital in Paris. Traditionally, lithotomy was a technique with a mortality rate of over 18 percent, but Civiale only lost 2 percent of his patients.

Ambroise Pare was a famous barber surgeon who would cauterize the gunshot wounds of soldiers with boiling oil. Doctors at the time were more concerned with keeping their patients alive, not comfortable, so it was one of the most painful procedures that could be done. Pare ran out of oil for a procedure and instead used a tincture of rose oil, egg yolks, and turpentine which made patients much more comfortable. Soon it was adopted by many other doctors. 

Despite being common today, blood transfusions were mocked before being proven effective by Oxford physician Richard Lower. Lower performed the first known successful animal blood transfusion in 1665, using dogs. In 1667, he used a sheep to transfuse blood into Arthur Coga, a mentally unstable man. The public mocked Lower after Coga’s mental problems were not cured by the transfusion. It took another century for blood transfusions to be considered a legitimate medical possibility.

Doctors in the 1600's considered surgery to be below them and usually pawned it off to barbers because they were more skilled with a blade. King Louis XIV suffered from gout, diabetes, periostitis, headaches and an anal fistula, which he had removed by Charles-Francois Felix.