What was surgery like in the ancient and middle ages?

Hippocrates was familiar with bandaging and bone-setting, possibly learning those directly or indirectly from Egyptian sources.

I've seen Hindus claiming their predecessors were performing surgerical operations in the Vedic period but I haven't verified this.

Orthopaedics, traumatology and dentistry are obviously the oldest fields. I've seen historians of medicine claiming that the earliest bone-setting procedures date all the way back to the Paleolithic.

As for the middle ages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning

Anaesthesia is a disturbingly recent practice, almost all surgery was very painful.

In order to become what it is now, surgery needed a lot of changes, the revolution begins with the 1700s, and by the 1800s it has become a proper university discipline.

Hospitals and higher medical and surgical education all change during those years into things resembling ours.

To answer the question more directly: it was scary, bloody, unhygienic, dangerous, lethal, and painful.

>>1267051
and not that infrequently, ineffective as a treatment to boot.

it would be extremely painful

>>1267074
What if the patient is a big guy?

>>1267077
For the medicus.

>>1267074
For you

IT wasn't on modern level but they could deal with wounds and broken bones. Compared to the knowledge they had about deseases it was pretty good

They did saw holes in skulls all over the place to release the evil spirits making the person ill. Apparently the patients occasionally survived.

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>>1266960
If you were lucky they would dose you with anesthesia, work cleanly and use anti-septics next to honey to aid in wound healing.

I am often surprised by the shit Roman, Medieval and Renaissance people survived and in the few occasions where procedures are mentioned they sound surprisingly modern.

>>1267653
As long as the membrane is not pierced you won't die right there.

Actually when I come to think of it I can recall a soldier writing his 16th century memoirs saying that he was shot with muskets in four places and cut with a sword over ten times, one of these cuts got through his skull and in his dura matter. The doctor said the wound was mortal but still patched him up and the guy survived.

did they use alcohol as anaesthesia?

>>1267885
It's not that good as anesthesia, thins the blood too.

A mixture of Hemlock, opium and lettuce seeds was preferred and could be administered either in a cup and according to one manual by soaking a sponge in it and holding that sponge over the patients mouth much like a chrolofome rag.

>>1267885
It's better than absolutely nothing as an anaesthetic.

Alcohol is useful as a disinfectant, because it dissolves the membranes of bacteria, protozoa, and even viruses with envelopes.

In fact, alcohol-based solutions are used in hospitals today to wash your hands with.

>>1267850
Well that's pretty Terminator tier shit going on.

>>1267922
IIRC he was 19 at the time.

To young to play a high school student in Hollywood films.

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The most famous account of surgery in Ancient China is about the time when the famous general, Guan Yu, took a poisoned arrow to the arm that embedded to the bone, which neccessitated surgery. By the accounts of popular folk tales "scraping the poison off his bone."

Allegedly, not wanting to show he's in dire straits to his men, the asshole invited them to drink and feast with him, and even played Go/Chess/Han-era variant of the game with one of his subordinate officers. Everyone failed to drink or have fun as they kept puking and running away from the sight of Guan Yu bleeding off and the sound of bronze tools heating bone.

Guan Yu remained seated through all this.

>>1267975
That's not surprising even 16yo lads were fighting wars back then. Kinda fucked up.