How did people get surgeries done before anesthesia was invented? How were they able to stay still and not move around during the procedures?
There’s no way people could just grit their teeth and feel being cut, could they? The pain alone had to make people act out.
In: Biology
Early surgery was mostly just a surgeon cutting off your arm or leg while one or two strong men held you down. You might be given a thick piece of leather to bite down on.
Later, they’d usually use some form of opium for the pain, but not enough to really knock you out, because you’d very likely not wake up again. Many surgeons thought that opium was too much of a risk, too.
Oh, and you also had a pretty fair chance of dying from infection, too, even if you survived the surgery. It was not a good time to be seriously injured.
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