I was invited to an early preview of John Singer Sargent’s art exhibit at the Met last week. I didn’t know much about him, so read his Wikipedia page beforehand.
The entry mentions that his father was an eye surgeon in Philadelphia in the 1840’s - 50’s, which prompted this question.
Very impressive artwork, by the way!
Cataract surgery was one:
Since anesthesia was only developed in 1846 these operations would have been horrifyingly brutal. I used to read old Lancet medical journals from the 1840s and the descriptions of the procedures are almost unimaginable.
Ergh. That article makes me so glad my cataracts were done in 2024.
Before anaesthetics, one of the essential qualities of a surgeon was speed. It was important to minimize pain and maximize the chances of a good outcome by operating as quickly as possible. Robert Liston was widely admired for his surgical speed. There is a famous report that in one case, he amputated a leg in 2.5 minutes and in addition accidentally amputated his assistant’s fingers, although that story may be apocryphal.
Oh yes - surgeons were speedy indeed.
Many advances in surgery came about from their grim experiences on battlefields at the time.
I still think there was a lot of pain and fear involved back then!
Cocaine finally allowed for painless eye surgery, but that development didn’t happen until the 1880s, thanks to Karl Koller