Susruta Samhita History

The oldest anatomical records have been found in ancient Egypt, 3000-2500 BCE. They include surgical documents for different medications and incantations. As can be seen in these records, the earliest type of surgery is cutting a hole in a person’s head. The reason behind these operations was to let out whatever caused the headaches. We know that some patients survived it, and some even underwent more than one of the operations.

In ancient India, records about diseases and treatments, as well as surgical processes have been discovered. These records have a considerable connection to religion. A medical manuscript, Susruta Samhita, written by a Hindi surgeon named Susruta around year 200 AD, includes descriptions of more than 100 operations

Already 400 BCE ancient Greek surgeons knew how to cure bone fractures by surgery. The operations were surprisingly accurate, and made sure that the bones did not heal with deformity. The surgical instruments that they used were made out of new materials, for example iron. The surgeons used a lancer, a sharp cutting tool, to cut up the skin of the patient. Mostly minor operations were done. Occasionally bigger operations, such as amputations were performed by the very best surgeons.

The most famous doctor from ancient Greece is Galen. He moved to Rome to become a surgeon to the Emperor. The books he has written have been a great influence to modern Western medicine. To study and learn more he dissected animals and even did experiments on live animals.

Most books about medicine written in ancient Greece got destroyed in the early middle ages. However, at that time, the Arabs had become interested in medicine and surgery. They collected all the books from ancient Greece that they could possibly obtain. They began experimenting and trying out the methods, and based on the Greek books and their own findings, they wrote their own books and writings, developing their own techniques.

2.3 Europe in the middle

Wells had been listening to a presentation, where the dentist Sam Cooley demonstrated how you can have a painless tooth extraction under laughing gas. After the presentation Wells used the laughing gas, nitrous oxide, on his patients, which made them laugh. It made the dentistry harder to handle for him, his knife slipped, and he ended up killing one of his patients. He began speculating whether there is any way to expand on that idea, and wrote down some notions.

Wells’s former partner Morton who had also studied at the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, happened to hear about his ideas and got interested. In medieval records, he found a plant called ether, sweet oil of vitriol. He studied the plant, and realised that it could work in about the same way as nitrous oxide. By stealing Wells’ idea, Morton tried ether on his dog. The dog sniffed in the drug, fell asleep, and got insensible to all of Morton’s efforts to move and pinch him. Two minutes later, the dog had gone back to normal again. Morton continued experimenting with ether on the dog, on himself and some of his friends. He realised that this was going to make him a