Posted on 10/23/2017 6:12:01 AM PDT by C19fan
Joseph Lister came of age as surgery was being transformed. With the invention of anesthesia, operations could move beyond two-minute leg amputations that occasionally lopped off a testicle in haste. (True story.) But as surgeons poked and prodded deeper into the body, surgery only became more deadly.
It was the infections that killed people.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Do you know that no one knows how anesthetics work?
It’s like gravity and magnetism.
All they know is - it works. But they have no idea how.
Source: good friend who is nurse anesthetist - for 30 years.....
Yes, the invention of antibiotics was huge! Before them, the average life expectancy in the US was 35 to 40. With them, it's close to 80.
Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy doubled in the past 150 years. Here’s why.
I read CENTURY OF THE SURGEON years ago. Glad I lived in the 20th Century, and now!
100 years ago I would have long been dead - a few times over.
So many in my family tree died of “acute Indigestion”.
When it hit me, it was found to be a plugged artery in the heart. Stent time!
Maybe that is why heart attacks were considered rare back in the 1800s, it masqueraded as indigestion.
***antibiotics was huge! Before them, the average life expectancy in the US was 35 to 40. With them, it’s close to 80. ****
And THAT is why the Social Security System is going broke. We were supposed to pay in all our lives, and die before needing it.
Today, doctors automatically go with heart attack when it could be something else. It wasn’t until long after my grandmother died that I suspected she was suffering from her gall bladder. Thankfully, I did realize it with my mother. Had to holler at the doctor to check her gall bladder and quit giving her heart meds that were causing seizures. Sure enough, I was right.
We’re coming full circle with antibiotics and super bugs.
On the plus side, no one back then died of AIDs or passed it along to the next 14 people.
Yup, the reason 65 was picked as the SS retirement age was because in 1934 the average U.S. life expectancy was 64.
Back then, homosexuals got married to folks of the opposite sex and contributed to the fabric of society.
Nowadays, that’s called “living a lie”.
Life was better when freaks were controlled.
Alls I know is anesthesia has either changed significantly since 20 years ago or they use different knock-out drugs for different operations.
The stuff they gave me 20 years ago had a delayed effect. I made the entire OR laugh when I was expected to be unconscious but spoke the words “Good night”. I had a strong constitution back in the day, stronger than the anesthesiologist expected, evidently.
Yup, that and also the baby boomers, which I am one of...
What hit me when I was watching a TV show about anesthetics in the old days: A woman is about to undergo surgery and the doc says “Drink this.” She asks if it will kill the pain and he says, “No, it will help you bear the pain.” Wow.
Infection afterwards? I think that’s where “The operation was successful but the patient died.” quote came from. This was in the days when surgeons stropped their scalpels on the soles of their shoes.
Up at Ft. William Henry in NY, they had an archaeological dig of the military hospital (ca 1755). Remember the phrase “Bite the bullet.”? They really did. Among the artifacts were lead musket balls chewed flat as the poor devils underwent an operation. Talk about tough times.
I watched the Russian version of WAR AND PEACE (1966)last week. In the third episode, during the battle of Bordino, an officer, awake, has his leg removed by surgeons, and is offered what appears to be probably vodka to endure the pain.
In the Civil War, it was common to remove an arm or leg than try and repair the damage done by a bullet. Too many woulds, no pain killers except whiskey.
Our nurse-anestheologist was explaining to us how much the drugs have changed over the years and are nothing like even a few years ago.
And they continue to change as they find new stuff that works.
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