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211 7 Beyond the surgery boundaries: doctors’ organisations and activist medics Migrant South Asian GPs, by the very nature of their roles, became embedded in communities. GPs came in contact with a cross-section of the local population at regular intervals, often over long periods of time. They benefited from a great deal of professional autonomy in addition to having substantial amounts of social capital. They were therefore in a position to shape the social and political environment in which they found themselves. Doctors’ interviews and archives provide
A new kind of surgery for a new kind of war Chapter 3 A new kind of surgery for a new kind of war: gunshot wounds and their treatment in the British Civil Wars Stephen M. Rutherford T his chapter aims to evaluate the validity of the medical practice of the early modern military surgeon. Significant progress has been made, in recent years, in researching the social impact of medicine in the post-Renaissance period. Considerable attention has been paid to the role and social status of medical practitioners,1 the impact of medical care for the dying,2 the role
Hesyre was a high court official in ancient Egypt and lived about 2650 bc during the reign of King Djoser. He managed to combine religious as well as secular posts, and has the distinction of being the first recorded physician and firstknown dentist in history. Healthcare developed at an early period in ancient Egyptian history as is supported by the evidence from the skeletal and mummified remains, from the artistic record, as well as from inscriptional and textual sources. These textual sources, the medical papyri, provide details of medical procedures undertaken, drugs employed and treatments provided - some of which have influenced modern medical practice. What we know about Hesyre comes from his impressive tomb at Saqqara, the walls of which are brightly decorated with items of daily life. Additionally, the tomb contained six fine wooden panels listing Hesyres titles, among them those relating to his practice of medicine and dentistry.
This book explores seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain’s experiences with and responses to the surgical reconstruction of the nose, and the concerns and possibilities raised by the idea of ‘nose transplants’ in this period. Challenging histories of plastic surgery that posit a complete disappearance of Gaspare Tagliacozzi’s reconstructive operation after his death in 1599, the book traces the actual extent of this knowledge within the medical community in order to uncover why such a procedure was anathema to early modern British culture. Medical knowledge of Tagliacozzi’s autograft rhinoplasty was overtaken by a spurious story, widely related in contemporary literature, that the nose would be constructed from flesh purchased from a social inferior, and would die with the vendor. The volume therefore explores this narrative in detail for its role in the procedure’s stigmatisation, its engagement with the doctrine of medical sympathy, and its attempt to commoditise living human flesh. Utilising medical research and book histories alongside literary criticism, the project historicises key modern questions about the commodification and limits of the human body, the impact of popular culture on medical practice, and the ethical connotations of bodily modification as response to stigma.
(‘On the surgery of mutilations through grafting’, (Venice: 1597)). Tagliacozzi's rhinoplasty procedure lifted a flap of skin from the patient's upper arm to reconstruct the nose, and is now so well known it forms the logo of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons, with Tagliacozzi heralded as the ‘father’ of plastic surgery. But histories of plastic surgery maintain that after Tagliacozzi's death his procedure disappeared from medical knowledge for the following two centuries. This is incorrect. It is likely that Tagliacozzi's procedure was never practised in
Historians of the British Civil Wars are increasingly taking notice of these bloody conflicts as a critical event in the welfare history of Europe. This volume will examine the human costs of the conflict and the ways in which they left lasting physical and mental scars after the cessation of armed hostilities. Its essays examine the effectiveness of medical care and the capacity of the British peoples to endure these traumatic events. During these wars, the Long Parliament’s concern for the ‘commonweal’ led to centralised care for those who had suffered ‘in the State’s service’, including improved medical treatment, permanent military hospitals, and a national pension scheme, that for the first time included widows and orphans. This signified a novel acceptance of the State’s duty of care to its servicemen and their families. These essays explore these developments from a variety of new angles, drawing upon the insights shared at the inaugural conference of the National Civil War Centre in August 2015. This book reaches out to new audiences for military history, broadening its remit and extending its methodological reach.
In this chapter, I discuss the history of various technologies for infection control in surgical operations. My account starts with the uptake of surgical gloves by practitioners in the late nineteenth century, which was a protracted process, and explains the relative disinterest of many surgeons in this particular technology by situating it in the context of other contemporary strategies of infection control. Exploring such alternative innovations shows that technological change in surgery and infection control does not happen in a vacuum. There are always
, the son of a satin weaver. 4 He rose to become a highly respected surgeon whose reputation spread throughout Europe and beyond, today appearing frequently on everything from medical history blogs and the television quiz show QI to the insignia of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons. Tagliacozzi studied and then taught at the University of Bologna, where he introduced many of his students to his rhinoplasty method. The university held his plastic surgery work in such high esteem that they erected a statue to him in their anatomy theatre in 1640 – holding
clearly show how concern for social and moral order had given way to caring for the well-being of the individual hermaphrodite. The conflict between legal purpose and a DS_C07.indd 165 11/15/11 4:44 PM 166 doubting sex humanitarian perspective came to a head in discussions concerning plastic surgery on genitals and secondary sex characteristics, as the third section will show. In all these discussions, the ‘sex of self ’ had, all of a sudden, become something seriously to be taken into account. Also this sex of self became an object of observation, discussion, care
In the 1900–1935 period, surgical success depended not only on the surgeon’s operative skill in the face of difficult challenges during surgery, but also on the prevention of sepsis. Pre- and post-operative care was mainly directed at preventing or managing infection, and was the relatively new professional sphere of the nurse. Training nurses to be skilled in surgical nursing was therefore vital to both the patient’s recovery and the surgeon’s success. Central to sepsis was the presence of pus; a substance laden with fears of gangrene and death, and morally