ABSTRACT

Written in a personal and engaging style, this book provides a fascinating and informative introduction to the development of surgery through the ages. It describes the key advances in surgery through the ages, from primitive techniques such as trepanning, some of the gruesome but occasionally successful methods employed by the ancient civilisations, the increasingly sophisticated techniques of the Greeks and Romans, the advances of the Dark Ages and the Renaissance and on to the early pioneers of anaesthesia and antisepsis such as Morton, Lister and Pasteur.

chapter 1|5 pages

Surgery in prehistoric times

chapter 3|6 pages

Surgery in Ancient Greece and Rome

chapter 4|14 pages

The Dark Ages and the Renaissance

chapter 7|17 pages

The advent of anaesthesia and antisepsis

chapter 9|25 pages

The surgery of warfare

chapter 10|13 pages

Orthopaedic surgery

chapter 11|14 pages

Breast tumours

chapter 12|15 pages

Cutting for the stone

chapter 13|14 pages

Thyroid and parathyroid

chapter 14|26 pages

Thoracic and vascular surgery

chapter 15|11 pages

Organ transplantation

chapter 16|8 pages

Envoi: Today and tomorrow