SURGERY DOWN THE AGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 242, 12 October 1929, Page 18 (Supplement)

SURGERY DOWN THE AGES.

The practice of surgery or of performing cutting operations on a patient, is very old. Even primitive peoples possessed a certain degree of skill in binding up wounds and applying healing herbs. It is likely that the early practice of surgical art was surrounded with superstition. In Egypt it was performed by the priests. During the early centuries in Europe surgery was combined .with shaving, and hair-cutting, and as lats as the time of Frederick the Great the.army surgeon shaved the Prussian officers, it was not until a much later day that surgeyy was recognised as a separate branch 'of the healing art. Sanskrit contains the oldest literature on surgery. The Hindus were found by Alexander the Great to possess a surprising skill in that direction. They are said to have amputated, set broken bones, and performed many remarkable operations 2000 or possibly 5000 years ago. The Egyptians also were skilled, and the remains of their art. on walls and monuments show patients under-, going surgical operations., Among (he Greeks, also, surgery was practised with success, and they carried thoir knowledge to Rome. The advance-of surgery is credited largely to .early: schools ,of instruction in which; ;; tli2 bodies of the dead were studied in detail.