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Surgery/Surgical Instruments
This fragment shows a doctor performing an operation on a patient's head while Asclepius (identifiable by his superhuman size and the caduceus in his right hand) looks on.
Here, a surgeon excises an arrow from a wounded soldier. Both men are depicted nude, suggesting that the episode stems from a mythic tale.
-surgical instruments during this time show surgery was advancing -better tools equals better preformance of surgery -New metals and alloys found to provide sharper edges and cheaper equipment (bronze, silver) -Iron was rarely used because it was considered religious -instruments not originally contrived for surgical purposes were sometimes used -strigil, a curved piece of metal with a handle used for scraping oil and sweat off the body after exercise, was often used to get into small openings. -The patient’s chances of recovery increased if the head and abdomen were not involved in surgery during this time -Medieval texts distinguish two positions with different terms: medicus for a doctor, and magister for a surgeon.
The Surgeon: -would always have handy amputation tools, arrow pullers, cauteries (hot irons) for stopping bleeding, bloodletting tools -most surgeons didn't have proper anisthetics and would use alcohol, opium or mandrake to knock patients out -surgeons didn't have proper means of disinfecting things so a lot of people who recieved surgery died from infection
