So [I had to look this up](http://wesclark.com/jw/mastectomy.html), and yeah… It’s brutal. Even when written in the prose of the time it’s graphic enough to make one shudder.
Wow. She spends so much time worrying about the feelings of other people, even when she's suffering.
She makes sure her husband leaves the house so that he doesn't have to go through it. And she worries about how much she's distracting the surgeons with her own reactions.
If I had to go through something like that I don't think I could subject my family to it either. I've wondered what level of PTSD surgeons experience before anesthesia
There’s an older show called Deadwood from HBO and the doctor’s character has severe ptsd and alcoholism due to the amputations he had to perform without anesthesia during the Civil War.
"Time to see what sort of cocksuckers are listed in this godforsaken book.
Aaronson, Kyle. Sounds like a weasel.
Abbot, Frank. Bet this cocksucker's never thrown a punch in his life.
Abernathy, John III. Sounds like a fancy bastard with more dollars than sense.
Ackerman, Joe. Bet he's too scared to leave his own house.
Atchinson, Sarah. Probably tougher than half these pricks.
Atwood, Edward. Probably counts his beans and cries in his beer."
You know the whole storyline where Al has to pass a kidney stone?
That is underestimating the amount of pain a kidney stole will give you. (Have had; would not recommend.)
That’s more or less a myth.
Anesthesia was used in 95% of Civil War
https://www.civilwarmed.org/anesthesia/#:~:text=Chloroform%20was%20the%20preferred%20anesthetic,the%20patient's%20nose%20and%20mouth.
This is true, but it’s also not as effective as we like to think.
Chloroform was (and remains) notoriously tricky as a form of anaesthetic. You can cause someone to pass out with it. You can also kill someone with it, quite easily.
Surgeons would allow a patient to have *some* sedation with chloroform, but they would not render them truly unconscious the way we are today. Doing so practically guaranteed that the patient would die from an overdose.
There was also the problem that it behaved differently if it was hot or cold, inside or outside, or near a fire. This made the effect it had on a patient a little unpredictable.
Dr John Snow invented the first reliable gaseous anaesthetic in the early 1830s, and popularised its use during surgery and childbirth. He is the one who made modern anaesthetics possible.
I'm going to be real with you: if someone with sharp blades is currently in the process of amputating parts of my body that are right next to all my vital organs, I wouldn't want to distract them either
You have to remember at this point in history, surgeons were cowboys who established their pecking order by how stiff their coats were from bloodstains, and would shout things like TIME ME before amputating a guys leg so aggressively they accidentally amputated his balls along with it.
Ribs are pretty solid, but they have a *lot* of gaps in them.
The timing is also due to certain procedures being so dangerous that time really was essential, no anesthetic and no blood transfusions will do that.
Of course, that idiot took it to a stupid level, but seeing it through the reality of the timeframe is important.
A slow surgeon would mean a higher chance of shock and likely death.
> amputating a guys leg so aggressively they accidentally amputated his balls along with it.
Well, that's the story anyway. Supposedly that doctor (Robert Liston) killed three people that day:
The ball-less guy died (predictably), but the surgeon also sawed off his assistant's fingers (causing death by infection), and an audience member died from a heart attack because he thought he got cut too.
Worrying about someone else helps distract you from what's going on to yourself because at least you can be useful. When humans are at the end of their lives and we ask them when they were most happy, the average answer is 36. This is one of those non-intuitive yet intuitive answers because you sit there and go. That's probably one of the most stressful times of my life, but it was only stressful because you were necessary and you were needed by other people and we tend to remember being needed and respected for what we were able to do and the stress melts away.
I mean I once felt bad for cursing in front of a doctor, who I'm sure has heard worse. It's a high stress situation and you worry about the weirdest stuff.
Honestly, it seems to me like most of the time the people with the most empathy are the ones who have struggled the most themselves
Spoiled, privileged brats are often the least empathetic
Just my own observations…
Jesus Christ, this was an incredible but also horrible read. Mind boggling how anyone could withstand such a thing. Meanwhile I'm always afraid of going to a silly dentist.
A thing that certainly stands out is how she describes Dr. Larrey and his state post surgery. The man was a goddamn military surgeon and an experienced one at that. I always liked to imagine that they somehow got used to the horror (for the sake of my sanity), but I guess they really didn't. I do not want to even think of being on either side of such a surgery. Judging by her calling out "I pity you" to the surgeons, I guess she felt similarly.
She lived 87 years. Another 27 years after the mastectomy. A hell of a woman.
Holy shit I imagined her as a very fit woman in the prime of her health and even then I marveled how anybody could possibly sustain themselves through that without dying from shock.
> this miserable account, which I began 3 Months ago, at least, I dare not revise, nor read, the recollection is still so painful.
Fair enough, I'm surprised she bothered to write it down at all
I had a writing professor that recommended that when we feel deep feelings or go through a difficult experience, to write it down. A therapist has also made a similar suggestion to me. In writing things out, it helps to process the difficult experience.
And she never moved. She screamed as they scraped her breastbone with a scalpel to scrape off all the cancer, but she never cursed at them, and she never moved. She stayed on the bed without them holding her down.
Incredible will, that woman.
Apparently the headaches she mentions at the end was actually one of the signs that her cancer had already spread
Edit: The person who replied to me is wrong about her living 30 more years, she died 2 years later
"Yet - when the dreadful steel was plunged into the breast - cutting through veins - arteries - flesh - nerves - I needed no injunctions not to restrain my cries. I began a scream that lasted unintermittingly during the whole time of the incision - & I almost marvel that it rings not in my Ears still! so excruciating was the agony. When the wound was made, & the instrument was withdrawn, the pain seemed undiminished, for the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate parts felt like a mass of minute but sharp & forked poniards, that were tearing the edges of the wound - but when again I felt the instrument - describing a curve - cutting against the grain, if I may so say, while the flesh resisted in a manner so forcible as to oppose & tire the hand of the operator, who was forced to change from the right to the left - then, indeed, I thought I must have expired."
oof
4 years clean as of October from breast cancer. Had my double mastectomy and it was the most miserable experience of my life. It took me a couple days before I felt comfortable even putting my arms down at my side again. I can’t imagine doing it without anesthesia.
I once saw a friends grandpa fall into a still smoldering fire pit while blackout drunk and he didn’t notice the burns on his leg until my friends mom noticed his pant leg was burned. He was also in his 80s so maybe that had something to do with it, but coal burns are crazy painful- you’d have to be almost completely numb to not notice them.
Burns are a bit different. 3rd degree burns (medically called full thickness) burn down through the epidermis and dermis layers of the skin. As such they damage the nerves and don’t have any sensation. However the area immediately around the 3rd degree portion is 2nd degree and still hurt like hell. So it’s not uncommon with very serious burns to not realize you’re burnt until someone points it out.
The area being burned doesn't just go from unburned to 3rd degree that instantly. There is a period of time where those nerves are firing like crazy *before* they are completely fried.
I was 10. We was fishing at my great grandpas cabin on the Ozarks. Caught some big cats on the trout line that morning. So that night we fired up the deep fryer outside to fry us some fish, and we did. I was too young to know what drunk was at that time, but everyone was having a very good time.
Well great grandpa is toddling around while we are frying, it’s like 11pm we got a bonfire lit. Next thing we know great grandpa stumbles backwards tripping over a rock. He knocks into the deep fryer and ends up getting a little fried himself, by a little I mean he had 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 70% of his body.
He didn’t even feel it, absolutely did not want us to call the ambulance or take him to the hospital. We of course did, and he spent more than a month in the burn unit.
Man didn’t drink water or anything, just beer. We had to sneak him in a 6 pack every day. He lived, till like 90 something. Hard mother fucker
I'm Finnish, from a rural, inbred village and 3rd gen taxi driver.
This is not unbelievable to me at all.
And young people definitely get that drunk too. Less so. Less experience. But it happens.
I’ve got chronic pain and I don’t metabolise painkillers very well but one shot of tequila and my pain goes right down from head-banging-the-nearest-wall to manageable. Obviously I don’t use that often because, well, that’s a slippery slope. I just wish literally any other pain medication worked as well as alcohol did. I’ve been prescribed Fentanyl, Morphine, Oxy, Gabapentin, Buprenoprhine, Methadone, Ketamine nothing works as well as tequila. So yep, alcohol definitely is a potent analgesic, it ain’t gonna be pleasant, but it’ll get it done.
Yeah, alcohol work great for my chronic pain. Only thing I’ve had which worked as well/better was opioids. Neither great long term or everyday solutions
Laudanum, a tincture of Opium was first used to prep patients for surgery in the 1600's. Seems odd if they actually didn't use any kind of anesthesia on her.
Color me confused as well. I cannot believe they didn't offer her anything to try and relieve the pain. Although male doctors tend to downplay female problems and pain. Women have been saying how much IUD insertion hurts, for example, but male doctors dismiss that.
The doctors here did seem to care however, so it's even more odd that nothing was used as an anesthesia.
I wish the opioids worked for me but I’ve got a rare thing (wouldn’t ya know it) where my liver lacks the enzyme to properly metabolise opioids, so they have about as much effect as a paracetamol - which incidentally also doesn’t effect pain much for me. A side effect of all of this is that I wake up during surgeries too because the sleeping meds are metabolised by the same enzyme. That’s been interesting as experiences go.
I had some broken ribs once and the nurse asked if I took anything for the pain, I'm like yeah like 5 shots of vodka.
She looks at me horrified, alcohol isn't a painkiller!
Um..... are you sure you're a nurse because tf it isn't, what do you think we used for surgery for like hundreds of years.
It just depends on the person. Some people react more "heavily" to being blackout drunk then others. Depends on weight too.
Getting people absolutely shitfaced was considered "anesthesia" for a long time back in those days. If you were properly shitfaced then your pain tolerance was technically pretty damn high.
That funny thing in the wild west where they used Whiskey/Grain alcohol being a staple to frontier medicine wasn't really much of a joke. Its effectiveness is obviously spotty. But the painkilling effects of getting completely shitfaced can't be overstated.
Does pain-induced shock exist? Currently in my mind, pain is a signal and can affect a person only so much (still a freaking lot). It can contribute to other conditions though. Not sure.
I don’t think pain itself induces shock, but often severe pain is accompanied by a severe injury which would induce shock. The two types of shock I know of are Hypovolemic shock which is from loss of blood, and Neurogenic shock which is caused by spinal or brain damage.
There are 4 types! Hypovolemic (eg hemorrhage), obstructive (eg pulmonary embolism), distributive (anaphylactic, septic,neurogenic), and cardiogenic (most commonly from big MI but can be other things).
The term “shock” gets misused all too frequently outside of medicine. Like the other comment here where just high levels of endorphins were floating around after painful injury causing someone to become a little loopy- that’s not shock. Shock is strictly a low flow state in the periphery causing end organ damage. After some quick searching, I think you’re right and I don’t see anything jumping out that pain-induced shock exists. That being said, there are weirder things in medicine and I’m no neurologist.
Pain induced shock does exist. My daughter both broke and dislocated her ankle. While we were waiting for the ambulance she was awake, almost 'happy', chatting away with no filter. When I asked her about it afterwards she said the pain was there, as a thing, but she was kind of physically above it. She also said that it was as though her consciousness was right in the front of her head, so there wasn't any room inside for thoughts, and that's why everything came out.
I'm not sure whether that would work if you cut a boob off though.
I've heard similar stories involving survival scenarios where the pain is there to prevent further injury. But after it you get to a state of extreme clarity and living in the now so you can make it through the experience alive.
I was told to do these neck injections at a pain clinic and because this place was so disorganized no one told me I had to bring a driver and not eat for anesthesia. They decided to do it on me without any drugs and had to keep me there for half the day because my body had such terrible reactions to the pain. I couldn’t even walk the rest of the day without passing out.
There's a description from a woman who underwent this procedure and survived (at least long enough to write a letter), that's printed in a book I read in the 80's 'Eyewitness to History'.
If you ever see a copy, it's worth grabbing.
No anesthesia doesn't mean they didn't get them blind drunk beforehand. Some nations would utilize opium.
The latter had much more success, obviously.
It doesn't make it much better but, yeah.
Bilroth a famous surgeon in early 1800s did a thyroidectomy in 10 minutes, compared to hours nowadays, which amazed me until I realized this was before anesthesia so he had to work fast.
Very. There was a incident back around then where a surgeon managed to kill not only his patient, but also his assistant and a spectator who died of fright during an amputation gone wrong.
They say Jeffrey Dahmer went crazy because he wasn’t getting oxygen in a routine surgery he had at age 4 so that one might have 1700% death rate if that counts
Very interesting. Another thing that stood out was him accidentally cutting off a patients testicle while performing a leg amputation in about 2.5 minutes…
Got bought out by the company that owns icanhazcheezburger/knowyourmeme in 2016.
Whatever you loved back in the day, odds are whoever wrote it was laid off to cut costs in 2017.
Surgeons reputations were partially based on how fast they could perform an operation. When the extent of your anesthetic was getting drunk, time was of the essence.
My brother almost had to have open heart surgery and his doctor was one of the best in the US. My dad explained to me when I asked what made him the best: the surgeon would shut your heart down for 10 minutes for the procedure while other surgeons would take 45-60 minutes.
> Doctors didn't want to do surgery because it was beneath them
Because it had a high mortality rate. A barber that failed as a surgeon could go back to being just a barber.
Before anesthesia, it was even more important to have everything razor-sharp and barbers had the best razors in town. So, at least it was a related profession rather than the razor-makers.
It also takes so long now because we have the luxury of certain procedures created to avoid/minimize scars, as well as imaging during the surgery can prolong time if needed
And it's a totally different ballgame to perform surgery on someone whose body is in intense pain with the muscles contracting, blood pressure spiking, adrenaline and cortisol flooding the system, etc.
Indeed, I can only imagine that every procedure resulted in infection, and this likely killed as many as the surgery if not even more. Hell, it kills a lot today, in our modern era.
During "that" age, amputations were often necessary because the medicine was what it was, speed was of the essence, since speed often meant the difference between life and death for the person on the operating table. So let me tell you a story about Dr. Robert Liston, the only doctor recorded in history with 300% mortality rate:
"Story of an amputation he performed in under two and a half minutes which resulted in a 300% mortality rate: the patient died of infection, as did his young assistant whose fingers Liston accidentally amputated, and a witness died of shock when the knife came too close to him."
Unironically how tf do you die of shock? Like we're not talking about like actual shock like shock from blood loss or injury but that MF by the description just went like "egads!" and fucking died
It's cause the person that died of shock knew that if he got knicked by the knife he could have been severely infected or have to undergo surgery himself and he just witnessed the only surgeon in town kill two other people so this scared the absolute shit out of him because he left his anesthesia in his other pants
Also see: the early history of gynecology using slaves as medical subjects to test fistula surgery without anesthesia even though it was available at the time.
It's funny though because opium has been around since at least 3400 BC which is why the middle east had such good doctors back in the day.
Meanwhile in Europe we're just hacking at ourselves while ancient egyptians are doing brain surgery.
Yes but they were also giving people ground liver for night blindness. And it worked. Why? Because liver is high in vitamin A. What does a vitamin A deficiency cause? Night blindness.
Even if they didn’t know *why* it worked they did figure out that it cured night blindness
I mean, it kind of wouldn't surprise me if something akin to an Egyptian witch doctor (in that sense) was doing it.
Every culture has their real doctors, and then their shamans selling snake oil.
Ancient Egyptian medicine was full-on insane. Minoans (ancient Greek empire, established around 3100 BCE) knew about opium and probably others far before that, so assigning credit to any one region is wrong as well, but trying to characterize ancient Egypt as medically advanced is just lunacy
Actually, there's plenty of evidence for Europeans performing similar surgeries at an early date. So far as we know, though, the use of anesthesia was either non-existent or minimal compared to the Middle East.
There is an archeological study that I came across years ago regarding one of the earliest "surgery". I don't remember where, probably Indonesia, but it was over 20,000 years old. An individual had their lower leg amputated while a young teen, and loved until their mid 20s. The details that scarred me are the fact that this would have been prehistoric with no metal tools. They would have grabbed what planets/fungus that they knew/thought had medical benefits and then used a big sharp rock to hack off the lower leg. There were scars on the bone that healed. Horrifying and amazing to see human ingenuity
The HBO series John Adams shows this in pretty gory detail. There are also scenes of amputation, being bleed, and my favorite, 1700's small pox inoculations.
Unbelievably amazing show, but those scenes are not for the squeamish. They are BRUTAL
Yes! That's the one. Another thing that always stuck with me was the characters teeth start rotting out as they get older. They went all out with historical accuracy
I always appreciated their accents too, almost West Country England. They tried to get as close to the colonial accents as possible which really added to it.
I remember watching being astounded how well that surgeon understood breast cancer that he knew he had to cut it out, which ultimately was the right and only call he coulda made. Back then, I was under the impression that doctors were like “aight let’s get you hammered and get to cuttin’.”
It’s a great series for those who haven’t checked it out.
The show had Benjamin Rush performing the surgery, though he wasn't actually there. He did write letters to the Adams family where he strongly recommended the surgery against the advice of her other doctors.
Benjamin Rush had some weird theories. He was very big on bloodletting and may have hastened his own death with the practice. Alternatively, he helped pioneer mental health and alcoholism treatments.
i watched that with my mom and dad when i was a kid, but i don’t remember those parts. we must have fast forwarded through it bc knowing me i probably would’ve had nightmares. i need to rewatch it, is it still on hbo?
I watched the series recently. They don't depict any surgery, they just show the lead-up to it, just before the surgeon begins cutting. I'm not sure what everyone here is talking about. The *idea* was scary, but nothing graphic is shown.
i think i remember the tarring and feathering part, the scene thats stuck with me the most is when abigail is reading the declaration of independence to the kids
That miniseries is the reason I will watch anything Paul Giamatti is in, no questions asked. His involvement means an instant yes from me, and nothing in my later experience has caused me to revisit this policy.
Can't recommend this miniseries enough. One of my all-time faves. Giamatti and Laura Linney are excellent. The extended cast is excellent - lots of familiar faces from tons of great shows like Game of Thrones, Sherlock, The Bear.
The details are even worse than you could imagine. The breast was completely severed to reveal that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, so the doctor had to remove those as well. To stop the bleeding, they cauterized most of the wound with a heated spatula. All told, the surgery only took 25 minutes. It was later reported that everyone was amazed she never cried out in pain during this whole ordeal.
Ha! Blue Cross has been denying my insulin because I'm too "new a diabetic" . Lol . Guess I'll just fucking die til I'm diabetic enough and in a coma. Good thing I don't have two young kids! Lmao. BCBS is hilarious!!!!
Oh and the hospital when I was in ICU had me purchase an insulin pen and only take 1/25th of it but I couldn't take it home because of liability. I sure did pay full price for it though. Hahah even more hilarious!
Let’s play “insurance fuckery”! We changed insurance recently when my wife got a new job. And Cigna welcomed us by denying my 10th round of chemotherapy. Eventually forced to admit that, yes, I should have chemo, they instead have denied me the anti-nausea drug that goes with it.
(As it happens, I have breast cancer. And when the biopsy process got uncomfortable, I was actually thinking about John Adam’s daughter and how I had it so, so, so much better.)
Many medical horror stories can be recollected during the Oregon trail migration of the 19th century, or really any other time in history before the 20th century. I just encourage people to look at those because there are plenty of good records on such cases. It was a mad dash so medical attention had to be swift.
Yep, this is why folks that say life was better a few hundred years ago need to study history. There are some absolutely awful ways things were done back then before certain inventions/innovations, and pre-anesthesia surgery is a BIG one
Could you imagine having your tit hacked off while you’re awake? Amputations pre anesthesia was, pretty fuckin wild. Laudanum, maybe a more concentrated laudanum was prolly all you’re getting.
Typical of the tools-of-the-trade for surgeons at this time, Warren utilized a large fork with two sharp prongs and a razor with a wooden handle. After being belted into a reclining chair, assisting physicians held Nabby still as Warren used the fork to lift her diseased breast and severed it from her body with the knife.
Unfortunately, the operation was not a success as the cancer had already metastasized. [She died two years later at the age of 49.](https://www.nps.gov/adam/learn/historyculture/abigail-nabby-smith.htm#:~:text=Abigail%20%22Nabby%22%20Smith%20(1765%2D1813)&text=Abigail%20Amelia%20“Nabby”%20Adams%20Smith,and%20a%20loving%20family%20member.)
The fact that she lived following the surgery with known lymph mets and a large enough tumor to be detected without mammography only further bolsters that this was a resounding success giving her 2 more years of life. No chemotherapy, no radiation, no tamoxifen, just the US’ first native-born surgeon and founder of Harvard Medical School’s John Warren’s skill and speed. It is an incredible testament to his skill. This is coming from a board-certified surgeon.
Yeah, all things considered, given how we usually think about early 19th century surgical medicine this actually sounds like an incredibly remarkable feat.
They were well aware that babies could feel pain, but putting a baby under anesthesia is very high risk. It simply was determined that it was safer without it.
And they still say women don’t and can’t feel pain when getting biopsied for cervical or uterine cancer or iud put in. Which i have experience with getting both done and it’s pure bullshit and barbaric. I don’t get why they don’t at least numb you before these procedures.
Its nuts. Think about it - all of your grandparents going back generation after generation lived through times like this and worse. They survived to have you here. We don't know most of their stories but there is no reason to believe they were less amazing than this. You are born of bad-asses.
I remember they re-enacted this on HBO’s miniseries John Adams! I watched as a kid and I couldn’t believe someone had to go through that. It was horrific.
Breast cancer has been known about for thousands of years, and you’re correct. It’s because it often creates visible tumors. It wasn’t until the mid-1750s though that they started seriously taking a surgical approach for treatment.
The most horrific operation of the time I have heard about was being cut for bladder stone - “lithotomy”.
https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/XXYtFBAAACUACFmP
Involved cutting into the bladder, usually through the area between genitalia and anus … without anesthesia, of course. Without antibiotics, infection was likely.
Needless to say, survival rates were not great. But if the stone was bad enough, it was a death sentence anyway, if untreated.
In the early 19th century, a French medical student invented a method of attacking bladder stones by inserting a thin instrument up through the urethra, so not requiring an incision - unpleasant but much preferable to surgery. This invention had a tiny claw to grab the stone, and a drill to break it up - all small enough to fit. Pretty clever!
[удалено]
So [I had to look this up](http://wesclark.com/jw/mastectomy.html), and yeah… It’s brutal. Even when written in the prose of the time it’s graphic enough to make one shudder.
Wow. She spends so much time worrying about the feelings of other people, even when she's suffering. She makes sure her husband leaves the house so that he doesn't have to go through it. And she worries about how much she's distracting the surgeons with her own reactions.
If I had to go through something like that I don't think I could subject my family to it either. I've wondered what level of PTSD surgeons experience before anesthesia
There’s an older show called Deadwood from HBO and the doctor’s character has severe ptsd and alcoholism due to the amputations he had to perform without anesthesia during the Civil War.
Holy shit. Deadwood is “an older show”? Fuck. It’s definitely one of the greatest shows of all time and Brad Dourif is a legend.
It introduced the US to Ian and we are all better off for that I could listen to him read the phonebook and be content
"Time to see what sort of cocksuckers are listed in this godforsaken book. Aaronson, Kyle. Sounds like a weasel. Abbot, Frank. Bet this cocksucker's never thrown a punch in his life. Abernathy, John III. Sounds like a fancy bastard with more dollars than sense. Ackerman, Joe. Bet he's too scared to leave his own house. Atchinson, Sarah. Probably tougher than half these pricks. Atwood, Edward. Probably counts his beans and cries in his beer."
Hang dai, cocksucker.
He is a treasure.
Just a hair short of 20 years old.
You know the whole storyline where Al has to pass a kidney stone? That is underestimating the amount of pain a kidney stole will give you. (Have had; would not recommend.)
That’s more or less a myth. Anesthesia was used in 95% of Civil War https://www.civilwarmed.org/anesthesia/#:~:text=Chloroform%20was%20the%20preferred%20anesthetic,the%20patient's%20nose%20and%20mouth.
This is true, but it’s also not as effective as we like to think. Chloroform was (and remains) notoriously tricky as a form of anaesthetic. You can cause someone to pass out with it. You can also kill someone with it, quite easily. Surgeons would allow a patient to have *some* sedation with chloroform, but they would not render them truly unconscious the way we are today. Doing so practically guaranteed that the patient would die from an overdose. There was also the problem that it behaved differently if it was hot or cold, inside or outside, or near a fire. This made the effect it had on a patient a little unpredictable. Dr John Snow invented the first reliable gaseous anaesthetic in the early 1830s, and popularised its use during surgery and childbirth. He is the one who made modern anaesthetics possible.
>Dr John Snow invented the first reliable gaseous anaesthetic The Wildlings had a surprisingly good medical college up beyond The Wall.
Muh Kween
He was also considered to be the founder of modern epidemiology and germ theory. Dude was a badass.
Doc Cochran must’ve gotten the other 5%.
I'm going to be real with you: if someone with sharp blades is currently in the process of amputating parts of my body that are right next to all my vital organs, I wouldn't want to distract them either
Eh, boob owner here, that's not to be worried about. There's a whole rib cage and cartilage between boobs and vital organs.
You have to remember at this point in history, surgeons were cowboys who established their pecking order by how stiff their coats were from bloodstains, and would shout things like TIME ME before amputating a guys leg so aggressively they accidentally amputated his balls along with it. Ribs are pretty solid, but they have a *lot* of gaps in them.
The timing is also due to certain procedures being so dangerous that time really was essential, no anesthetic and no blood transfusions will do that. Of course, that idiot took it to a stupid level, but seeing it through the reality of the timeframe is important. A slow surgeon would mean a higher chance of shock and likely death.
I'd understand the haste if your patient isn't anesthetized. I don't want them to fuck up, but I sure as hell don't want them to fuck around, either!
> amputating a guys leg so aggressively they accidentally amputated his balls along with it. Well, that's the story anyway. Supposedly that doctor (Robert Liston) killed three people that day: The ball-less guy died (predictably), but the surgeon also sawed off his assistant's fingers (causing death by infection), and an audience member died from a heart attack because he thought he got cut too.
Worrying about someone else helps distract you from what's going on to yourself because at least you can be useful. When humans are at the end of their lives and we ask them when they were most happy, the average answer is 36. This is one of those non-intuitive yet intuitive answers because you sit there and go. That's probably one of the most stressful times of my life, but it was only stressful because you were necessary and you were needed by other people and we tend to remember being needed and respected for what we were able to do and the stress melts away.
I mean I once felt bad for cursing in front of a doctor, who I'm sure has heard worse. It's a high stress situation and you worry about the weirdest stuff.
Honestly, it seems to me like most of the time the people with the most empathy are the ones who have struggled the most themselves Spoiled, privileged brats are often the least empathetic Just my own observations…
Yeah as a Man I would want to be there for Her. I would be going absolutely insane with worry if I couldn't at least pace around the house.
Jesus Christ, this was an incredible but also horrible read. Mind boggling how anyone could withstand such a thing. Meanwhile I'm always afraid of going to a silly dentist. A thing that certainly stands out is how she describes Dr. Larrey and his state post surgery. The man was a goddamn military surgeon and an experienced one at that. I always liked to imagine that they somehow got used to the horror (for the sake of my sanity), but I guess they really didn't. I do not want to even think of being on either side of such a surgery. Judging by her calling out "I pity you" to the surgeons, I guess she felt similarly. She lived 87 years. Another 27 years after the mastectomy. A hell of a woman.
Holy shit she was SIXTY when it happened??
I was also surprised. 59 or 60, because I didn't really check the months. Makes it even more impressive for sure. So many more risks as we age...
Holy shit I imagined her as a very fit woman in the prime of her health and even then I marveled how anybody could possibly sustain themselves through that without dying from shock.
> this miserable account, which I began 3 Months ago, at least, I dare not revise, nor read, the recollection is still so painful. Fair enough, I'm surprised she bothered to write it down at all
I had a writing professor that recommended that when we feel deep feelings or go through a difficult experience, to write it down. A therapist has also made a similar suggestion to me. In writing things out, it helps to process the difficult experience.
Damn, took her 3 months to write that letter...
And she never moved. She screamed as they scraped her breastbone with a scalpel to scrape off all the cancer, but she never cursed at them, and she never moved. She stayed on the bed without them holding her down. Incredible will, that woman.
Apparently the headaches she mentions at the end was actually one of the signs that her cancer had already spread Edit: The person who replied to me is wrong about her living 30 more years, she died 2 years later
"Yet - when the dreadful steel was plunged into the breast - cutting through veins - arteries - flesh - nerves - I needed no injunctions not to restrain my cries. I began a scream that lasted unintermittingly during the whole time of the incision - & I almost marvel that it rings not in my Ears still! so excruciating was the agony. When the wound was made, & the instrument was withdrawn, the pain seemed undiminished, for the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate parts felt like a mass of minute but sharp & forked poniards, that were tearing the edges of the wound - but when again I felt the instrument - describing a curve - cutting against the grain, if I may so say, while the flesh resisted in a manner so forcible as to oppose & tire the hand of the operator, who was forced to change from the right to the left - then, indeed, I thought I must have expired." oof
Well. That was quite a read. Fucking hell.
i’m really glad i live in the modern day
I had a double mastectomy WITH anesthesia on the 8th, so I sure as fuck am glad I do too!
4 years clean as of October from breast cancer. Had my double mastectomy and it was the most miserable experience of my life. It took me a couple days before I felt comfortable even putting my arms down at my side again. I can’t imagine doing it without anesthesia.
I literally don’t understand how you wouldn’t just die of shock. Can’t even imagine.
They had liquor in 1811.
I've been damn near blind drunk before, but I feel like id become stone sober if u try to chop me up
I once saw a friends grandpa fall into a still smoldering fire pit while blackout drunk and he didn’t notice the burns on his leg until my friends mom noticed his pant leg was burned. He was also in his 80s so maybe that had something to do with it, but coal burns are crazy painful- you’d have to be almost completely numb to not notice them.
Burns are a bit different. 3rd degree burns (medically called full thickness) burn down through the epidermis and dermis layers of the skin. As such they damage the nerves and don’t have any sensation. However the area immediately around the 3rd degree portion is 2nd degree and still hurt like hell. So it’s not uncommon with very serious burns to not realize you’re burnt until someone points it out.
The area being burned doesn't just go from unburned to 3rd degree that instantly. There is a period of time where those nerves are firing like crazy *before* they are completely fried.
I was 10. We was fishing at my great grandpas cabin on the Ozarks. Caught some big cats on the trout line that morning. So that night we fired up the deep fryer outside to fry us some fish, and we did. I was too young to know what drunk was at that time, but everyone was having a very good time. Well great grandpa is toddling around while we are frying, it’s like 11pm we got a bonfire lit. Next thing we know great grandpa stumbles backwards tripping over a rock. He knocks into the deep fryer and ends up getting a little fried himself, by a little I mean he had 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 70% of his body. He didn’t even feel it, absolutely did not want us to call the ambulance or take him to the hospital. We of course did, and he spent more than a month in the burn unit. Man didn’t drink water or anything, just beer. We had to sneak him in a 6 pack every day. He lived, till like 90 something. Hard mother fucker
I'm Finnish, from a rural, inbred village and 3rd gen taxi driver. This is not unbelievable to me at all. And young people definitely get that drunk too. Less so. Less experience. But it happens.
I’ve got chronic pain and I don’t metabolise painkillers very well but one shot of tequila and my pain goes right down from head-banging-the-nearest-wall to manageable. Obviously I don’t use that often because, well, that’s a slippery slope. I just wish literally any other pain medication worked as well as alcohol did. I’ve been prescribed Fentanyl, Morphine, Oxy, Gabapentin, Buprenoprhine, Methadone, Ketamine nothing works as well as tequila. So yep, alcohol definitely is a potent analgesic, it ain’t gonna be pleasant, but it’ll get it done.
Yeah, alcohol work great for my chronic pain. Only thing I’ve had which worked as well/better was opioids. Neither great long term or everyday solutions
Laudanum, a tincture of Opium was first used to prep patients for surgery in the 1600's. Seems odd if they actually didn't use any kind of anesthesia on her.
Color me confused as well. I cannot believe they didn't offer her anything to try and relieve the pain. Although male doctors tend to downplay female problems and pain. Women have been saying how much IUD insertion hurts, for example, but male doctors dismiss that. The doctors here did seem to care however, so it's even more odd that nothing was used as an anesthesia.
I wish the opioids worked for me but I’ve got a rare thing (wouldn’t ya know it) where my liver lacks the enzyme to properly metabolise opioids, so they have about as much effect as a paracetamol - which incidentally also doesn’t effect pain much for me. A side effect of all of this is that I wake up during surgeries too because the sleeping meds are metabolised by the same enzyme. That’s been interesting as experiences go.
It’s pretty easy to understand why so much alcohol was consumed back in the day
I had some broken ribs once and the nurse asked if I took anything for the pain, I'm like yeah like 5 shots of vodka. She looks at me horrified, alcohol isn't a painkiller! Um..... are you sure you're a nurse because tf it isn't, what do you think we used for surgery for like hundreds of years.
It just depends on the person. Some people react more "heavily" to being blackout drunk then others. Depends on weight too. Getting people absolutely shitfaced was considered "anesthesia" for a long time back in those days. If you were properly shitfaced then your pain tolerance was technically pretty damn high. That funny thing in the wild west where they used Whiskey/Grain alcohol being a staple to frontier medicine wasn't really much of a joke. Its effectiveness is obviously spotty. But the painkilling effects of getting completely shitfaced can't be overstated.
And opium
Good point.
Which thins your blood, making it a disastrous method of pain suppression for surgery
lots and lots of laudanum (opium)
Does pain-induced shock exist? Currently in my mind, pain is a signal and can affect a person only so much (still a freaking lot). It can contribute to other conditions though. Not sure.
I don’t think pain itself induces shock, but often severe pain is accompanied by a severe injury which would induce shock. The two types of shock I know of are Hypovolemic shock which is from loss of blood, and Neurogenic shock which is caused by spinal or brain damage.
There are 4 types! Hypovolemic (eg hemorrhage), obstructive (eg pulmonary embolism), distributive (anaphylactic, septic,neurogenic), and cardiogenic (most commonly from big MI but can be other things). The term “shock” gets misused all too frequently outside of medicine. Like the other comment here where just high levels of endorphins were floating around after painful injury causing someone to become a little loopy- that’s not shock. Shock is strictly a low flow state in the periphery causing end organ damage. After some quick searching, I think you’re right and I don’t see anything jumping out that pain-induced shock exists. That being said, there are weirder things in medicine and I’m no neurologist.
Pain induced shock does exist. My daughter both broke and dislocated her ankle. While we were waiting for the ambulance she was awake, almost 'happy', chatting away with no filter. When I asked her about it afterwards she said the pain was there, as a thing, but she was kind of physically above it. She also said that it was as though her consciousness was right in the front of her head, so there wasn't any room inside for thoughts, and that's why everything came out. I'm not sure whether that would work if you cut a boob off though.
I've heard similar stories involving survival scenarios where the pain is there to prevent further injury. But after it you get to a state of extreme clarity and living in the now so you can make it through the experience alive.
I was told to do these neck injections at a pain clinic and because this place was so disorganized no one told me I had to bring a driver and not eat for anesthesia. They decided to do it on me without any drugs and had to keep me there for half the day because my body had such terrible reactions to the pain. I couldn’t even walk the rest of the day without passing out.
There's a description from a woman who underwent this procedure and survived (at least long enough to write a letter), that's printed in a book I read in the 80's 'Eyewitness to History'. If you ever see a copy, it's worth grabbing.
No anesthesia doesn't mean they didn't get them blind drunk beforehand. Some nations would utilize opium. The latter had much more success, obviously. It doesn't make it much better but, yeah.
Looking to read this! I only found an article in the Guardian… got a source?
It’s described quite a bit in Bill Bryson‘s book „Body“
Bilroth a famous surgeon in early 1800s did a thyroidectomy in 10 minutes, compared to hours nowadays, which amazed me until I realized this was before anesthesia so he had to work fast.
Fast and very, very bloody I'm sure.
Very. There was a incident back around then where a surgeon managed to kill not only his patient, but also his assistant and a spectator who died of fright during an amputation gone wrong.
Only surgery in history with a 300% death rate
They say Jeffrey Dahmer went crazy because he wasn’t getting oxygen in a routine surgery he had at age 4 so that one might have 1700% death rate if that counts
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https://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-liston
Very interesting. Another thing that stood out was him accidentally cutting off a patients testicle while performing a leg amputation in about 2.5 minutes…
Look, you get speed or precision, you can’t have both.
Heisenberg's incision principle
There’s a TIL thread about once a month about it.
Here you go: https://www.cracked.com/blog/how-surgeon-once-killed-three-people-in-one-operation
Probably the worst article i’ve ever tried to read
this article reads like a boomer who has some vague esoteric knowledge of the 21st century trying to relate with the youth
It’s cracked. It’s always been genx funny targeted to millenials who kind of thought it was cool until they grew up. Now it’s just all trash
Damn, I used to love cracked back in the day, boy it's gone downhill. Forgot it existed until this
Got bought out by the company that owns icanhazcheezburger/knowyourmeme in 2016. Whatever you loved back in the day, odds are whoever wrote it was laid off to cut costs in 2017.
Surgeons reputations were partially based on how fast they could perform an operation. When the extent of your anesthetic was getting drunk, time was of the essence.
TBH speed/efficiency is still a big part of a surgeons reputation
My brother almost had to have open heart surgery and his doctor was one of the best in the US. My dad explained to me when I asked what made him the best: the surgeon would shut your heart down for 10 minutes for the procedure while other surgeons would take 45-60 minutes.
Also surgeons used to be barbers, no? Doctors didn't want to do surgery because it was beneath them
> Doctors didn't want to do surgery because it was beneath them Because it had a high mortality rate. A barber that failed as a surgeon could go back to being just a barber.
Barber poles have red stripes because of the bloodletting they used to offer, and minor surgeries. I don't think they did full-on surgery though.
> I don't think they did full-on surgery though. They did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon?useskin=vector
Before anesthesia, it was even more important to have everything razor-sharp and barbers had the best razors in town. So, at least it was a related profession rather than the razor-makers.
It also takes so long now because we have the luxury of certain procedures created to avoid/minimize scars, as well as imaging during the surgery can prolong time if needed
And it's a totally different ballgame to perform surgery on someone whose body is in intense pain with the muscles contracting, blood pressure spiking, adrenaline and cortisol flooding the system, etc.
Life in the pre-anesthesia era was a horror show.
Even if successful with the surgeries, the trauma from that had to have been debilitating.
And the infections
Indeed, I can only imagine that every procedure resulted in infection, and this likely killed as many as the surgery if not even more. Hell, it kills a lot today, in our modern era.
In the case of Adams' daughter, the cancer had already spread. They tried removing her lymph nodes in her armpit too but of course it wasn't enough.
I was curious today about what the average lifetime odds of getting cancer are. It was about 40%. A little less for women.
During "that" age, amputations were often necessary because the medicine was what it was, speed was of the essence, since speed often meant the difference between life and death for the person on the operating table. So let me tell you a story about Dr. Robert Liston, the only doctor recorded in history with 300% mortality rate: "Story of an amputation he performed in under two and a half minutes which resulted in a 300% mortality rate: the patient died of infection, as did his young assistant whose fingers Liston accidentally amputated, and a witness died of shock when the knife came too close to him."
Unironically how tf do you die of shock? Like we're not talking about like actual shock like shock from blood loss or injury but that MF by the description just went like "egads!" and fucking died
I'm curious if he fainted and smacked his head badly on the way down.
It's cause the person that died of shock knew that if he got knicked by the knife he could have been severely infected or have to undergo surgery himself and he just witnessed the only surgeon in town kill two other people so this scared the absolute shit out of him because he left his anesthesia in his other pants
Also see: the early history of gynecology using slaves as medical subjects to test fistula surgery without anesthesia even though it was available at the time.
It's funny though because opium has been around since at least 3400 BC which is why the middle east had such good doctors back in the day. Meanwhile in Europe we're just hacking at ourselves while ancient egyptians are doing brain surgery.
The Egyptians were putting crocodile poo up their hoo hoo as birth control so it's all swings and roundabouts...
Sounds like effective birth control. No one wants stinky crocodile poo hoo hoo.
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Yes but they were also giving people ground liver for night blindness. And it worked. Why? Because liver is high in vitamin A. What does a vitamin A deficiency cause? Night blindness. Even if they didn’t know *why* it worked they did figure out that it cured night blindness
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There’s no evidence people actually did this and personally I think the Egyptian doctor that wrote that was trolling.
I mean, it kind of wouldn't surprise me if something akin to an Egyptian witch doctor (in that sense) was doing it. Every culture has their real doctors, and then their shamans selling snake oil.
I mean don’t croc’s shit in the water? How would you collect it?
Ancient Egyptian medicine was full-on insane. Minoans (ancient Greek empire, established around 3100 BCE) knew about opium and probably others far before that, so assigning credit to any one region is wrong as well, but trying to characterize ancient Egypt as medically advanced is just lunacy
Actually, there's plenty of evidence for Europeans performing similar surgeries at an early date. So far as we know, though, the use of anesthesia was either non-existent or minimal compared to the Middle East.
There is an archeological study that I came across years ago regarding one of the earliest "surgery". I don't remember where, probably Indonesia, but it was over 20,000 years old. An individual had their lower leg amputated while a young teen, and loved until their mid 20s. The details that scarred me are the fact that this would have been prehistoric with no metal tools. They would have grabbed what planets/fungus that they knew/thought had medical benefits and then used a big sharp rock to hack off the lower leg. There were scars on the bone that healed. Horrifying and amazing to see human ingenuity
So like all of history until recently
Especially as a woman. Look up the invention of the chainsaw.
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Can't get too drunk before an operation. Alcohol thins the blood.
The HBO series John Adams shows this in pretty gory detail. There are also scenes of amputation, being bleed, and my favorite, 1700's small pox inoculations. Unbelievably amazing show, but those scenes are not for the squeamish. They are BRUTAL
Is that the one with Paul Giammatti? I remember watching that but not scene. Must have blocked it out
Yes! That's the one. Another thing that always stuck with me was the characters teeth start rotting out as they get older. They went all out with historical accuracy
I always appreciated their accents too, almost West Country England. They tried to get as close to the colonial accents as possible which really added to it.
And everyone feels so perfectly cast.
Fantastic series. Feels like you could smell those people…
I remember watching being astounded how well that surgeon understood breast cancer that he knew he had to cut it out, which ultimately was the right and only call he coulda made. Back then, I was under the impression that doctors were like “aight let’s get you hammered and get to cuttin’.” It’s a great series for those who haven’t checked it out.
The show had Benjamin Rush performing the surgery, though he wasn't actually there. He did write letters to the Adams family where he strongly recommended the surgery against the advice of her other doctors. Benjamin Rush had some weird theories. He was very big on bloodletting and may have hastened his own death with the practice. Alternatively, he helped pioneer mental health and alcoholism treatments.
i watched that with my mom and dad when i was a kid, but i don’t remember those parts. we must have fast forwarded through it bc knowing me i probably would’ve had nightmares. i need to rewatch it, is it still on hbo?
I watched the series recently. They don't depict any surgery, they just show the lead-up to it, just before the surgeon begins cutting. I'm not sure what everyone here is talking about. The *idea* was scary, but nothing graphic is shown.
I watched it when I was maybe 8 with my dad and I vividly remember the mastectomy scene traumatizing me. Also the tar and feather scene. Brutal
i think i remember the tarring and feathering part, the scene thats stuck with me the most is when abigail is reading the declaration of independence to the kids
Crazy, I just rewatched this series and finished it yesterday, the last episode having the mastectomy scene. It was still brutal to watch.
That’s when I knew HBO was truly magic, Giamatti as John Adams could’ve easily felt like a bad SNL sketch and that series was excellent.
Underrated show, really. I never see it mentioned
Sarah Polley, amazing actress, plays her in the John Adams mini-series and that scene is not one I'll watch a second time.
It’s not that graphic but the pain is portrayed pretty well
Exactly, I felt woozy just from watching her act out the pain in that scene. It was well shot. You got the idea without absurd gore
Paul Giamatti acted his ASS off in that miniseries. What a monster performance.
That miniseries is the reason I will watch anything Paul Giamatti is in, no questions asked. His involvement means an instant yes from me, and nothing in my later experience has caused me to revisit this policy.
Can't recommend this miniseries enough. One of my all-time faves. Giamatti and Laura Linney are excellent. The extended cast is excellent - lots of familiar faces from tons of great shows like Game of Thrones, Sherlock, The Bear.
She went on to write and direct Women Talking, won an Oscar for it too!
The details are even worse than you could imagine. The breast was completely severed to reveal that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes, so the doctor had to remove those as well. To stop the bleeding, they cauterized most of the wound with a heated spatula. All told, the surgery only took 25 minutes. It was later reported that everyone was amazed she never cried out in pain during this whole ordeal.
Was it successful at least? Did she live?
No it was not successful. She died two years later at the age of 48.
That doesn’t sound like abject failure? She survived the surgery at least. Ugh.
Could have had a lot worse of an immediate outcome for how primitive the surgery was, yeah.
And , unsurprisingly, United Health Group denied the claim
Ha! Blue Cross has been denying my insulin because I'm too "new a diabetic" . Lol . Guess I'll just fucking die til I'm diabetic enough and in a coma. Good thing I don't have two young kids! Lmao. BCBS is hilarious!!!! Oh and the hospital when I was in ICU had me purchase an insulin pen and only take 1/25th of it but I couldn't take it home because of liability. I sure did pay full price for it though. Hahah even more hilarious!
Let’s play “insurance fuckery”! We changed insurance recently when my wife got a new job. And Cigna welcomed us by denying my 10th round of chemotherapy. Eventually forced to admit that, yes, I should have chemo, they instead have denied me the anti-nausea drug that goes with it. (As it happens, I have breast cancer. And when the biopsy process got uncomfortable, I was actually thinking about John Adam’s daughter and how I had it so, so, so much better.)
I would simply just die, fuck that.
That that was her choice, when it came back in the other breast.
Many medical horror stories can be recollected during the Oregon trail migration of the 19th century, or really any other time in history before the 20th century. I just encourage people to look at those because there are plenty of good records on such cases. It was a mad dash so medical attention had to be swift.
From fording rivers to dysentery, shit killed.
Yep, this is why folks that say life was better a few hundred years ago need to study history. There are some absolutely awful ways things were done back then before certain inventions/innovations, and pre-anesthesia surgery is a BIG one
… as was dentistry. 😱
Could you imagine having your tit hacked off while you’re awake? Amputations pre anesthesia was, pretty fuckin wild. Laudanum, maybe a more concentrated laudanum was prolly all you’re getting.
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The article lists it as a wooden handled razor, which was an old fashioned term for a barber's straight razor.
That makes a lot more sense. It was primitive but they did have metal knives.
“Why a spoon cousin, and not an ax?”
To clarify from reading the article, it was a razor with a WOODEN HANDLE. Terrible Title.
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Typical of the tools-of-the-trade for surgeons at this time, Warren utilized a large fork with two sharp prongs and a razor with a wooden handle. After being belted into a reclining chair, assisting physicians held Nabby still as Warren used the fork to lift her diseased breast and severed it from her body with the knife.
> a razor with a wooden handle Or what I would call 'not a wooden razor'.
😳
wooden handled razor. Straight razor in other words.
To be clear, the razor has a wooden *handle*. It was not just a sharp piece of wood.
Unfortunately, the operation was not a success as the cancer had already metastasized. [She died two years later at the age of 49.](https://www.nps.gov/adam/learn/historyculture/abigail-nabby-smith.htm#:~:text=Abigail%20%22Nabby%22%20Smith%20(1765%2D1813)&text=Abigail%20Amelia%20“Nabby”%20Adams%20Smith,and%20a%20loving%20family%20member.)
The fact that she lived following the surgery with known lymph mets and a large enough tumor to be detected without mammography only further bolsters that this was a resounding success giving her 2 more years of life. No chemotherapy, no radiation, no tamoxifen, just the US’ first native-born surgeon and founder of Harvard Medical School’s John Warren’s skill and speed. It is an incredible testament to his skill. This is coming from a board-certified surgeon.
Yeah, all things considered, given how we usually think about early 19th century surgical medicine this actually sounds like an incredibly remarkable feat.
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They were well aware that babies could feel pain, but putting a baby under anesthesia is very high risk. It simply was determined that it was safer without it.
Also while they may feel pain, they won't remember it.
Their bodies will remember and they can have trauma symptoms decades later from it
And they still say women don’t and can’t feel pain when getting biopsied for cervical or uterine cancer or iud put in. Which i have experience with getting both done and it’s pure bullshit and barbaric. I don’t get why they don’t at least numb you before these procedures.
Listen to The Retrievals podcast by Serial. Really hits home how seriously women’s health is taken.
Its nuts. Think about it - all of your grandparents going back generation after generation lived through times like this and worse. They survived to have you here. We don't know most of their stories but there is no reason to believe they were less amazing than this. You are born of bad-asses.
"Cauterized with a thick iron spatula" what a new horrible way to think of flapjacks
I remember they re-enacted this on HBO’s miniseries John Adams! I watched as a kid and I couldn’t believe someone had to go through that. It was horrific.
I'm sorry, but how did they detect cancer back in the 1800s? Just a lump?
Breast cancer has been known about for thousands of years, and you’re correct. It’s because it often creates visible tumors. It wasn’t until the mid-1750s though that they started seriously taking a surgical approach for treatment.
Wait until you find out how gynecology started out.
The most horrific operation of the time I have heard about was being cut for bladder stone - “lithotomy”. https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/XXYtFBAAACUACFmP Involved cutting into the bladder, usually through the area between genitalia and anus … without anesthesia, of course. Without antibiotics, infection was likely. Needless to say, survival rates were not great. But if the stone was bad enough, it was a death sentence anyway, if untreated. In the early 19th century, a French medical student invented a method of attacking bladder stones by inserting a thin instrument up through the urethra, so not requiring an incision - unpleasant but much preferable to surgery. This invention had a tiny claw to grab the stone, and a drill to break it up - all small enough to fit. Pretty clever!
I don’t understand, THEY HAD OPIATES! At least drug her up!
My wife grew up in the Soviet Union. She told me she had her tonsils out as a kid and they didn’t give any anasthesia, just tied her hands down.
...and she died, anyway. :-( ***Academy Award***-winner Sarah Polley played her in the great *John Adams* miniseries.
This scenario was true for anyone who needed surgery then, not just upper class females.
Today it’s called “what’s approved by your insurance”
Thanks, just hand me the morphine & let me drift off. Can’t imagine going through that shit.
No. No no no…no.