Story time speed surgeon

STORY TIMESpeed

Surgeon

Dominique Jean Larrey 1766 –1842

• French surgeon in Napoleon's army • Greatest military surgeon of all times• Participated in 25 campaigns and over 60 battles• Managed all the wounded soldiers (Even Enemy)• Record of doing 200 amputations in 24 hours

Dominique Jean Larrey

• Found time for extensive writing. • He wrote on rabies, tetanus,

aneurysms, elephantiasis scroti, urine atrophy, etc.

• First to observe that Trachoma and conjunctivitis are contagious

• First description of trench foot. • Method of Packing wounds with

ice and snow for pain relief

Innovations of Larrey

• He invented the field ambulance to carry soldiers• Flying Ambulances for rapid transport• Alone managed all Medical Care in battlefield  • First to described the therapeutic use of maggots• He did first amputation at the hip in 1812

Dominique Jean Larrey

• Loved by the French soldiers and respected by the enemies

• Enemy - Duke of Wellington ordered his soldiers not to fire in his direction

• When Larrey sustained a gunshot wound. Ironically, he was left wounded

• He was promptly sentenced to death -- until the Prussian commander happened to pass by and immediately released him because Larrey had treated his son.

Speed Surgeon

Robert Liston 1794 –1847Speed Surgeon

• Robert Liston, first Professor of Clinical Surgery

• Prior to the 19th century, every wound was a potential case of gangrene.

• To amputate gangrenous limb, without anaesthesia.

• Pain management - a swig of whiskey and a knock on the head with a hammer

Robert Liston: Speed Surgeon

• So, a merciful surgery was a very fast surgery.

• Required sharp Instruments, a lightning-quick hand and careful precision.

• Robert Liston had the first two - could amputate one leg in less than three minutes -- skin, bone, muscle, tendon, through.

Surgery in 1800

Liston’s 300% Mortality Case

• Amputated the leg in under 21/2 minutes – Patient died afterwards in the ward

• Amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant – He died afterwards in the ward from

hospital gangrene.

• Slashed through the coat of a surgical spectator – Dropped dead from fright

Robert Liston: Speed Surgeon

• He also performed the first operation in Europe under Ether Anaesthesia using ether, on 21 December 1846

• Soon after he died in 1847 

Speed Surgeon

Dr. J. Marion Sims 1813 - 1883

• Father of Gynaecology • South Carolina’s Father Butcher• Medical experiments with enslaved

women, done without anaesthesia or antiseptics.

• Many lost their lives.• First surgery – Punctured a

abdominal mass with Shoemaking awls. The patient was relieved.

Gift to Gynaecology

• First Forceps application• Sims speculum – Used a spoon• He fashioned over 71 surgical

instruments• Sims' sigmoid catheter• Operated Vesico-vaginal fistula• First gallbladder surgery, • Introduction of antiseptic

principles

Ethical Controversy

• Repair of vesico-vaginal fistula• 30 surgeries done on ‘Anarcha’

without anaesthesia to perfect his technique of silver-wire sutures.

• He operated the upper-class white women with ether anaesthesia.

Speed matters…

Not more than Life…