Illustration of woodcut from Johannes Scultetus, Armamentarium Chirurgicum...Tabulis Aeri Elegantissime Incisis, nec ante hac visis, exornatum. Opus Posthumum... (Typis & impensis Balthasari Kühnen, 1655).
| Date | 1655 |
|---|---|
| Location | Ulmae Suevorum |
| Description |
The ‘caesarean operation’ can be dated to ancient times, although the first known use of the term ‘caesarean section’ was 1598, when the word ‘operation’ was dropped. Until the 19th century, the procedure was carried out as a last resort, primarily used to help birth babies whose mothers were dying or had died from birth. As you can see from the page shown the caesarean originally used a vertical opening to the abdomen compared with the lower horizontal incision today. Caesareans were extremely dangerous prior to the discovery of pain relief, germ theory and effective sutures discovered in the latter half of the 19th century. Johannes Scultetus (1595-1645) was one of the first academically trained surgeons in Germany in the 17th century and this revolutionary textbook on surgery was first published ten years after his death. Its success was responsible for the improved standard in the education of the non-academic barber surgeons and was a significant milestone for the development of surgery as an academic speciality. The book contains a complete catalogue of surgical instruments and illustrated demonstrations of new surgical techniques used in mastectomy, hernia operations, arterial ligation and caesarean sections. |
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