# What did eye surgery involve in the mid-1800’s? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 27, 2025, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-eye-surgery-involve-in-the-mid-1800-s/1017562 "2025-04-27T14:24:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-eye-surgery-involve-in-the-mid-1800-s/1017562/1 "2025-04-27T14:24:53Z")
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! ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-eye-surgery-involve-in-the-mid-1800-s/1017562/2 "2025-04-27T14:40:55Z")
Cataract surgery was one: > **[History of Cataract Surgery - EyeWiki](https://eyewiki.org/History_of_Cataract_Surgery)** > > Summary of the history of cataract surgery ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-eye-surgery-involve-in-the-mid-1800-s/1017562/3 "2025-04-27T14:45:57Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-eye-surgery-involve-in-the-mid-1800-s/1017562/4 "2025-04-27T18:22:31Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Cataract surgery was one: Ergh. That article makes me so glad my cataracts were done in 2024. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-eye-surgery-involve-in-the-mid-1800-s/1017562/5 "2025-04-27T18:39:01Z")
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-eye-surgery-involve-in-the-mid-1800-s/1017562/6 "2025-04-27T18:42:33Z")
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! ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-eye-surgery-involve-in-the-mid-1800-s/1017562/7 "2025-04-27T23:21:28Z")
Cocaine finally allowed for painless eye surgery, but that development didn’t happen until the 1880s, thanks to Karl Koller > **[Karl Koller (ophthalmologist)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Koller_(ophthalmologist))** > > Karl Koller (December 3, 1857 – March 21, 1944) was an Austrian ophthalmologist. He began his medical career as a surgeon at the Vienna General Hospital and a colleague of Sigmund Freud. > Koller introduced cocaine as a local anaesthetic for eye surgery. Prior to this discovery, he had tested solutions such as chloral hydrate and morphine as anaesthetics in the eyes of laboratory animals without success. Freud was fully aware of the pain-killing properties of cocaine, but Koller recognized its tis...