First Known Amputation
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Interesting article;
"The amputation happened when the individual was perhaps 12 years old, the skeleton indicates. Gone is the lower portion of the left leg. And somehow, the individual survived the surgical procedure — a remarkable feat given that it happened some 31,000 years ago.
The skeleton, discovered in a cave on Borneo, in what is now Indonesia, appears to be evidence of the oldest known surgical amputation — 24,000 years earlier than that of a farmer in France, who had his left arm cut off an estimated 7,000 years ago."
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"He pointed to another mystery as well. Even today, “if you have something like a sharp steel instrument that’s a little bit dull, it doesn’t do the job,” Miller said. “I just can’t figure out how they would cut the bone.” "
I imagine the cave man equivalents of @George-K @Jolly @bachophile doing the operation. LOL
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When the scientists returned the following year, Vlok noticed the end of the leg was cut cleanly in a straight line, with no sign of crushing or shattering, as expected if a rock had fallen on it or an animal had bitten it off. “It looks exactly like what you would expect if a sharp blade cut completely perpendicular to the bone,” she says. “It made us confident this was surgery.”
The ancient surgeon likely used a stone or bone tool to cut through the leg, Aubert says, although the team hasn’t yet found the Stone Age equivalent of a bone saw.
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Obsidian can be almost razor sharp.
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Infection was the bane of surgeons as recently as the 1930s. More succumbed to bugs than to surgical trauma.
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Infection was the bane of surgeons as recently as the 1930s. More succumbed to bugs than to surgical trauma.
@George-K said in First Known Amputation:
Infection was the bane of surgeons as recently as the 1930s. More succumbed to bugs than to surgical trauma.
So, let's say you are somewhere in the wilderness with no tools except what you can find in nature, how would you perform a leg amputation? (let's say death of the patient is certain unless the leg is amputated)
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@George-K said in First Known Amputation:
Infection was the bane of surgeons as recently as the 1930s. More succumbed to bugs than to surgical trauma.
So, let's say you are somewhere in the wilderness with no tools except what you can find in nature, how would you perform a leg amputation? (let's say death of the patient is certain unless the leg is amputated)
@Klaus @bachophile would know more about this than I would, being the guy who uses sharp things for a living.
However, the first thing to control would be hemorrhage. That would mean applying some kind of tourniquet proximal to the amputation site. That's probably easy enough to fashion from readily-found materials.
Next thing you're going to need is some very able-bodied friends to hold the
patientvictim down.Gonna need something sharp. As @jolly said, some kind of sharpened stone could suffice.
Hopefully, but this time your patient has fallen unconscious from the pain and shock.
The real problem is going to be getting through the bone. I suppose a sharp tool being struck by a mallet would be able to do the job, but something serrated or something like a Gigli saw would be best. I don't know if you could fashion something similar from found materials - I doubt it. So, hammer away with a makeshift mallet against your makeshift chisel.
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Need a stick or preferably a leather belt to place between the teeth. People tend to bite down hard enough to break a tooth or bite through their tongue.
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@George-K what do you think of the old "Spaghetti Western" style of surgery: Drink a lot of whiskey to remove the pain, then use the remaining whiskey for desinfection.
@Klaus said in First Known Amputation:
Drink a lot of whiskey to remove the pain, then use the remaining whiskey for desinfection.
Better than nothing, to be sure, though I'm not sure how effective EtOH would be as a disinfectant, but better than nothing, of course.
