Surgical interventions are already known from prehistoric and early times: There, not only wounds were treated, but also skulls were opened by scraping or drilling, fractures were treated, or obstetric techniques were practiced. The oldest document in which trauma surgery procedures are described (Papyrus Edwin Smith) comes from Egypt and is estimated to have been written between 3000 and 2600 BC. Much like modern medicine, it describes injuries from head to toe and discusses the appropriate treatment techniques.
In antiquity, there are numerous other written proofs that the surgical art of healing has existed since time immemorial – whether the Codex Hammurabi from ancient Babylon, the ancient Indian Vedas, the treatment of wounds before Troy in Homer’s Iliad, or the Corpus Hippocraticum, a collection of medical texts by various authors from 500-200 B.C. One ancient maxim still holds true today: the physician should intervene as safely, quickly, and painlessly as possible.
Middle Ages
Ancient knowledge migrated from ancient Greece to Byzantium and Arabia, was supplemented and expanded there – the heyday of Arab surgery was around 1000 AD – and then returned to the Occident. Medieval wound surgeons not only cleaned, sutured and dressed wounds, but also adjusted joints, set bones, removed splinters, treated amputation stumps and disinfected gunshot canals with boiling oil.
Even pain could be alleviated: moist “sleeping sponges” with extracts of poppy juice, henbane, datura or mandrake were placed over the mouth and nose for this purpose. Practical surgery and science entered into a new bond from the middle of the 16th century – surgeons increasingly appeared in public as academics and brilliant thinkers.
More recent and modern surgery
Modern surgery, with all its surgical possibilities and specializations, was heralded by two groundbreaking innovations in the mid-19th century:
- The invention of ether anesthesia, which made painless surgery possible for the first time, and
- The discovery of asepsis, which allowed massive containment of wound infection.
With the exploration of the relationship between germs and infection and the discovery of antibiotics, it was possible to control them even better. In addition, numerous other innovations, advancements and discoveries helped modern trauma surgery to its status quo: surgical techniques and materials, graft medicine and prostheses, drugs and materials for wound care, diagnostic devices and those for monitoring are just a few examples.
In addition, interdisciplinary cooperation has proven its worth, the rescue system with first aid, transport and blood exchange, etc., has been optimized, microsurgery and the computer have been established as tools, and knowledge of the importance of rehabilitation measures has prevailed.
