I know that supine is on one’s back & that prone is on one’s belly. What I need to know is the term for the “birthing” position. Knees bent in toward the chest, rear end exposed.
Anyone know?
The dorsal lithotomy position IIRC.
Thanks, vetbridge. It was on the tip of my brain & couldn’t remember it.
Is that so-named because that was the position that the oldschool surgeons (pre-antiseptic, pre-anaesthesia) used to remove bladder-stones in the days when surgeries were done in seconds rather than hours?
I only ask because lithotomy seems like it would mean ‘stone cutting’.
That would be my thought. Although “lith” is not specific for bladder stone, but rather any stone. They can occur in the bladder, ureter, kidney, gall bladder, salivary gland, and likely a buncha places I’m not thinking of.
I realise that lithiasis can occur elsewhere, but patient on back with legs up and separated would suggest to me that the surgeon is going for access to the bladder rather than kidney, gall bladder or salivary gland.
I would imagine that ‘oldschool’ incisions for gall bladder and kidney would be in roughly the same place as the modern sites, if they even did those types of surgery.
On a side note, whenever I think of the old surgeons I cannot help but remember the story of the superfast amputation by a famously fast London surgeon, his name escapes me. He took off not only the patient’s leg, but his testicles and the orderly’s fingers in the space of about 90 seconds.
My favorite old-time surgeon quote: