The Father Of Modern Surgery The hospital environment has not always been a place of sterility and extreme cleanliness that is associated with it so readily today. Prior to the work of Joseph Lister, the hospital was a place to go to die, not to be cured. If an individual was able to survive the pain and torture of surgery without anesthesia, a postoperative infection would most certainly be their ultimate demise. Thanks to Joseph Lister, later known as Baron Lister, a hospital is now a place of healing and cleanliness, not one of death and filth. Lister's Early Life: Joseph Lister was born to Joseph Jackson Lister and Isabella Harris on April 5, 1827 in Upton, England. Upton was a small village outside of the …show more content…
Lister realized the importance of the work of his ancestors, but was appalled at the fact that outdated material could be learned for hundreds of years. Lister was lucky to be entering medical school in a time when many important changes were taking place. Medical students were now allowed to dissect human bodies, previously thought to have been grounds for execution and certainly morally apprehensible. The methods by which students learned were also modernized, and the public view of surgeons was being changed. As late as the early to mid-1800's surgeons were not considered worthy of the respect of physicians, and were not permitted by law to practice medicine. As the technology surrounding surgery was enhanced, the surgeons began to gain respect in their own right. The use of ether in surgery as an anesthetic allowed the surgeons to concentrate more on detail and less on speed. Prior to ether, the surgeon's speed was the only way to minimize the pain of the patient. Lister was a very sympathetic person, and strove early in his career to change the previously accepted conceptions of surgery. When Lister began his education surgery had a mortality rate of over 50%. This was accepted by society, but not by Lister. He set out very early to change this problem. Joseph continued his education and questioned
The shock of amputation sparked fear into thousands of civil war soldiers. Before the gilded age, patients resented surgery due to the pain associated with it. The main anesthesthetics that were used were hashish, Mandrake, alcohol, and opium. Surgery before the gilded age consisted of speed to lessen pain but it created hostile and often cruel conditions for the patient.
The role of the nurse anesthetist gradually developed as the demand increased for individuals who were highly and meticulously trained in anesthesia administration in an era where knowledge of germs, antisepsis and surgical interventions was emerging. During the 1800s, medical students were often responsible in the administration of anesthesia under the direct supervision of surgeons but the increased mortality rates in intraoperative patients suggested the need to reevaluate who would provide anesthesia. As a result of negative patient outcomes, surgeons turned to nurses, who served to be an adequate and reliable replacement. This trend proved to be catalytic in the movement of the nurse anesthetist.
In the 1800s surgeons mostly concentrated on speed and accuracy when doing surgery. Thats the most they practiced instead of trying to do it right they wanted to do it faster and the fastest surgeons were considered the best. “Surgeons were famed for their speed, particularly in amputation. As there was still no effective
The history of nurse anesthesia cannot be accurately studied without a thorough analysis of the pioneer and transformational leader, Alice Magaw. Charles Mayo called her the Mother of Anesthesia for many good reasons (CRNA Profiles, n.d.). It is worthy of the student anesthetist’s time to study the life, education, employment, leadership, publications, and legacy of Alice Magaw.
(History of Nurse Anesthesia Practice. 2010, May), (Koch, E., Downey, P., Kelly, J. W., & Wilson, W. 2001).
One good thing that resulted from the Civil War was the rise of knowledge and use of modern anesthesia. This anesthesia came in two forms, chloroform and ether. Those patients that anesthesia was used on had a higher survival rate than those where it was not available. Before the war, alcoholic drinks, opioids and bite blocks were used to keep a patient controlled during surgery. These options did not completely eliminate pain causing stress and trauma. At the time of the Civil War, it was considered cowardly to undergo surgery using anesthetic. Anesthesia was usually used for women and children. Use of anesthesia did not go without risk. Surgeons had to practice to figure out adequate dosages which took a period of trial and error sometimes resulting in overdose and death. Although uncivilized at times, medical care during the Civil War helped bring on a new age of modern medicine.
The two main types of Anesthesia the doctors used was either chloroform or ether. The doctors usually did one of
The instruments used in these operations were either cleaned in water that wasn’t clean or had been previously used on other patients and hadn’t been cleaned. Either way the instruments caused infections and diseases. Overall the medical camps that were used caused more casualties than
Although these surgeson were trying to avoid posing of system the surgical tools they used were made with Mercury a highly toxic element; this was also a case of trial and error during the time to better the doctors knowledge. With the case of trial and error brought about many medical theories. Some of these doctors professed that these different theories were helpful like the acid/alkaline theory, others like, the Four Humor Theory of Medicine, was thought to be ludicrous.(Chachoua,2013) These ideas of the different theories shed the spectrum of formal knowledge the doctors knew to the informal knowledge. With this whole era of lacking knowledge slowly progressed into knowing more throughout the later
Good job on this weeks forum. I did not know who George Bancroft was before I read your post, so I decided to research him in the APUS library. I found an article on George Bancroft that might be useful to you, and it can be found at this link by search George Bancroft: Master Historian.
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are infections patients can acquire in a healthcare facility while being given medical care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website notes six major sites of infection that patients are at risk of acquiring while receiving care in acute care hospitals in the United States: pneumonia, gastrointestinal illness, urinary tract infections, primary bloodstream infections, surgical site infections from any inpatient surgery, and other types of infections. Their website recounts that as early as 1847 evidence is documented of persons acquiring infections while receiving care in a hospital. The website for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Healthcare Research
Oliver Cromwell was born on April 25th 1599 in Huntingdonshire England to Elizabeth and Robert Cromwell. The Cromwell Association stated “Oliver Cromwell was born into a family which was for a time one of the wealthiest and most influential
The earliest documentation of anesthetic care given to a patient by a nurse was the work done by Sister Mary Bernard in 1887. She was a catholic nun who worked at the St. Vincent hospital in Erie Pennsylvania,(Thatcher,1952,p 12). The nurse anesthetists of that time were trained by physicians at first, but as time went on the nurses took a more active role in the study and research of anesthetics and eventually surpassed their teachers in the field of anesthesiology. This advance led to role reversal, where the teacher became the student and the student became the teacher. By 1909 the first formal educational program designed for nurse anesthetists was started at St. Vincents Hospital in Portland Oregon,(Evans,1995,p 3). Upon graduation from the school, the nurse anesthetists were placed in all sorts of settings. Most impressive were the teaching positions held by nurses in the medical schools of that time. They became the primary instructors of anesthetic to medical students. The nurse anesthetist also held positions in the battlefields. During World War One, the American nurse anesthetist was the primary health giver to troops in the European theaters of
As a hospital, quality care should be a priority for patients that are going to be treated for a sickness, or any type of procedure that is going to take place. A lot of times a patient gets an infection while they were at the hospital, on top of being treated for what they original came in for. Health facilities should be environments of healing, which they are, but they also have tons of various types of germs and infections, which grasp onto individuals that have weak immune systems/are sick. Some infections that are at hospitals are Tuberculosis, VRE, VAP, C-Diff, UTI, and MRSA. Preventive measures to stop the spread of the infections is lacking tremendously in the work and aim to provide safety for all patient’s health. The work
A person by the name of Morton “borrowed” his method and performed it in front of famous surgeons. For years they could not decide which man should be credited as the father of anesthesia so both Morton and Long share this honorable position (History). In Boston there is a statue that stands, erected to the Father of Anesthesiology. If someone were to look closely at the statue, they would see that there is no name listed because there is no one Father of Anesthesiology.