We do not fully understand how lucky we are with modern medicine.
If we look at books on medicine and surgery just over a century ago, that is, during the Victorian era (1837-1901), then we get the feeling that we are in a dark and gloomy Middle Ages.
The Victorian era is the reign of Victoria, Queen of the British Empire, Ireland and India.
Real innovative shifts in this matter began to occur only around the 1890s, and before that, patients were forced to suffer severely during almost any intervention.
The high mortality rate during surgery during this time was widely reported in newspapers, magazines, medical papers, and the risk of death existed even for a relatively healthy person during the simplest surgery.
It was indeed a difficult time for Victorian surgeons, but thanks to advances in modern science, these horror stories are now a thing of the past.
10. Chloroform was the only pain reliever for many years
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The idea of an operation without anesthesia is simply impossible to imagine now, but it was a harsh reality in the past. It wasn't until 1847 that chloroform was introduced in Britain and was used as the only possible anesthetic for the next 50 years.
Scottish obstetrician Sir James Simpson was the first to use chloroform for treatment and he used it to relieve pain in women in labor. Simpson invented a mask that was saturated with chloroform vapor and then placed on the patient's face. After only a few minutes of preparation, the operation began. Even Queen Victoria was given chloroform during the delivery of her last two children.
9. Hot irons were used to stop bleeding
In Victorian surgery, where military surgeons often experienced profuse bleeding from wounds, hot iron was often used to stop the flow of blood. Obviously, this was an extremely unpleasant method of treatment, and a peculiar alternative to moxibustion was found long before the Victorian era.
The scientific journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society once wrote about one such method, which, as it turned out, has been known since the 1670s. Surprisingly, they even described this operation as a “fun” experience for the patient.
8. A huge number of patients died from surgical interventions
Surgery in the Victorian era was fatal, but more often not because of the intervention itself, but because of the enormous risk of infection after surgery.
Also, surgeons had a poor understanding of the nature of pus. Despite the pungent, foul odor, doctors believed the pus coming out of the wound was evidence of an ongoing healing process, not that it was the result of a growing bacterial infection.
The high mortality rate from postoperative "fever" only subsided when surgeon Joseph Lister (1827-1912) introduced antiseptic practices and sterile environments in hospitals. Lister is now known as the "father of antiseptic surgery."
7. The barbers were also surgeons
From the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853, there was a short period of relative calm in Britain. During the fighting days, however, conventional barbers were recruited en masse as military surgeons and assigned to operations on the wounded.
Despite the lack of extensive knowledge or formal training, the barber surgeon coped well with his task of jerking his teeth, bleeding, and even performing surgeries such as amputation of limbs or stitching wounds.
6. Mass use of leeches
Nowadays, for most people, the very thought that slimy worm-like living creatures will crawl on their skin will make you shudder with disgust.
Leeches are still regularly used, but they are considered alternative medicine and on a much smaller scale than in the Victorian era, when they were almost considered a panacea for all diseases.
The practice of bloodletting is harmful, as it can lead to anemia, but the Victorian doctors did not think about it at all.
5. The faster the surgeon works with the saw, the better
Imagine that your leg is sawed off due to a broken bone or fracture, while you are lying on the operating table and most likely fully conscious, since anesthesia may not be applied. You perfectly see the whole process of amputation and even have time to notice (if you do not lose consciousness from the painful shock) how your severed leg is thrown into a bucket of sawdust.
So it is not surprising that patients in this case will hope for the most efficient and fastest surgeon.
Dr. Robert Liston (1794-1847) was known as one of the most famous surgeons in history and was nicknamed "The Fastest Knife in the West End." He cut off the limbs of his patients with the saw so fast that he shouted the phrase “My time, gentlemen! My time!" and after just a couple of minutes, the limb was already flying to the floor.
Such a high rate of amputation bore fruit. It is believed that in Liston, only one in ten patients died, while other surgeons died on average four out of ten. Liston's waiting room was constantly crowded with patients, counting on his quick hand.
4. Victorian hospitals were for the poor
If you were a wealthy person in the Victorian era, your family doctor would treat you at home in complete comfort and you would not leave your room. But if you are poor, you are admitted to the hospital. Rich women in labor also gave birth at home, and the poor in hospitals (and died there like flies from childbirth fever, and in fact from infection from the dirty hands of a doctor who did not wash his hands even after opening corpses).
In hospitals, new patients are often admitted only once a week and immediately assigned to only two categories - either in the block of "incurable infections", or as suffering from mental illness.
Patient rooms are located on the highest floor of the hospital, but if you are so poor that you have no money at all for treatment, you will be examined in the treatment room, where invited spectators will stare at you. Otherwise, you will have to look for a wealthy philanthropist who is ready to pay for your treatment.
3. Surgeons wore clothes with traces of blood and the smell of pus
British surgeon Sir Berkeley Moynihan (1865-1936) recalled how his fellow surgeons walked to work and entered the operating room wearing old surgical aprons that were "hard with dried blood and pus."
Victorian surgeons often wore their bloody robes with great pride, and they carried the smell of rotting flesh with them home every day. This also gave its own mortality rate and it is not surprising that Victorian hospitals were considered more "houses of death" than "houses of healing."
2. Crowds of curious spectators watched the operations
While patients squirmed on the operating tables and even tried to escape during painful procedures, the audience sat in chairs around and enjoyed it as a show. Working in such an environment was not unusual for an audience in the Victorian era. Nobody thought about the risk of infection.
The painful screams of patients and the loud crowd watching the operations could be heard even on the street outside the hospital.
1. One of the most famous Victorian surgeons after death turned out to be a woman
The popular surgeon Dr. James Barry died in 1865. His headstone reads "Dr. James Barry, Inspector General of Hospitals." He is considered one of the most successful surgeons in Victorian history, but he was actually … a woman.
Barry was actually called Margaret Ann Bulkeley. From her youth, the girl dreamed of becoming a doctor, but women were not allowed to do such work and were not given the appropriate education. Then Margaret Ann decided to become James Barry. Under that name, she joined the army as a doctor and in 1826 performed a successful caesarean section in Cape Town, seven years before such an operation was first performed in the UK.
Throughout his life, James Barry trusted only his assistant and the truth about her real sex was only accidentally revealed to the maid who washed her body after death. Soon this information was rushed to classify in order to prevent the development of a scandal. Only at the beginning of the XXI was professional research carried out, which confirmed that James Barry was really a woman.