One would expect me to talk more about one of my niche interests- 1800s medical history- outside of a specific circle and this blog, but I actually don’t.
Why? Because the conversations I have drive me crazy. People act like it’s purely barbaric. There were a fair few problematic things by modern standards, but isn’t it said to not put modern standards on the past? (within reason)
By the time period I focus on, the humoral theory was actively on its way out, with stragglers up into the mid 1800s— they were then turning to observational/diagnostic practices. Sanitation was also starting to become prioritized, with Lister’s Theory popping up and becoming the standard not long after. Vaccines had been invented by this point, thanks to people like Jenner.
A lot of the surgeries by educated physicians were thought through. The idea of cutting off limbs entirely was because people could die of shock and blood loss if they went digging or attempted to fix it. Statistics changed when a clean wound was created, instead of trying to fix an old one. And many did not cut limbs immediately. The mindset I see the most is that if they could save it, they would. And the death statistics we see used? Most of that was infections that happened before and after. The surgery itself didn't have as high of a risk. They had no means to fully clean a wound like how we do now by that point.
Carbolic soap (especially after the 1860s), alcohol, and diluted vinegar was being used by some to clean when they could. It wasn’t perfect, but it’s very clear to me that many were doing what they could with the knowledge they had— and quite a few were actively experimenting to better it. (Sometimes to the detriment of others..) They just didn’t find the right combinations by that point.
Those cadavers in jars people seem to turn their nose up to? That was one of the few ways someone could learn. By preserving the anomaly, it could be shown so others could see what to look for. The same with wax models. Even today, donated bodies are used to show anatomy. Only the methods of preservation and obtaining cadavers are different.
Yes, there was a disturbingly large lack of consent, especially for minorities, and some advancements were blatantly ignored (poor semmelweis…), and the obtainment and treatment of cadavers can be considered abhorrent (see burke and hare murders, as well as liston assaulting knox in regards to this. It's on Liston's wiki page). Or the fact the miasma theory was commonly used up until germ theory, and cleanliness wasn't up to the right standards to avoid gangrene and infection, but to call medicine between the 1790s to the early 1900s utterly barbaric is far too simplistic and insulting to the men and women who worked so hard to advance medicine to what we see today.
And this always happens during conversations when the topic comes up. It’s begun to truly irritate me, and I cannot keep having the same conversation over and over again. This mindset of medicine in the 1800s as just saws and screaming patients is annoying and wildly wrong. It was so much more than that.
