Knowledge about surgery and anatomy has improved at different times for different
reasons. Why was this? (8 marks + 4 marks SPAG)
Surgical knowledge has improved at different times due to numerous factors including the work of
key individuals, war, government and religious beliefs.
From prehistory through to the early 19th century, religious and superstitious beliefs hindered the
development of surgical knowledge. For example, it was illegal to dissect a human body because
Christians thought that it was against God’s will and in Ancient Egypt they believed the body
needed to be preserved for the afterlife. By contrast, it enabled Galen to discover the nervous
system while dissecting a pig, as dissecting a human was illegal in Ancient Rome. This did lead to
some incorrect assumptions by Galen about the human body. For example, he believed the human
jaw was made up of two bones, although it was only one. Similarly, during the Middle Ages the
church had control over what boos people could read and this limited trainee doctors as they were
only able to read Galen’s work. This largely hindered the opportunity to develop new ideas or make
new discoveries. It was almost impossible to prove Galen wrong and discover correct information
about the human anatomy until the Renaissance when the power of the church started to decline.
Even at this point, some superstitious and religious beliefs still played a key role in hindering the
development of surgical knowledge. For example, Vesalius’ ‘Fabric of the Human Body’ was far
more correct than Galen’s recordings, however people still trusted Galen’s work due to the
Church’s previous influences. In addition other key individuals’ contributions to improving
knowledge about surgery and anatomy were hindered by religion, such as James Simpson’s
discovery of chloroform being an effective anaesthetic in 1847 was met with a lot of opposition
from religious believes who believed it was against God’s will to ease pain.
Government also had an impact on the development of surgical knowledge, and majorly hindered
the ability to make new discoveries due to the laissezfaire attitude seen throughout history. This
approach was commonly seen from Ancient Egypt until the mid 19th century. The reason for the
governments’ attitude hindering knowledge so greatly was due to the fact that they rarely invested
money into research. Therefore, many medical practitioners who had ideas could rarely carry them
through due to the lack of support and funding from the government. For example Semmelweiss’
idea of washing hands before entering maternity wards was unsupported by many, including the
government, and consequently the idea wasn’t built upon at the time. However, this same idea was
later used to help develop aseptic surgery which revolutionised surgery and saved many lives.
Chance played a significant role in the development of surgical knowledge, this is because during
the Renaissance period Ambroise Pare developed a new treatment for gunshot wounds by
chance. Previously, hot oil was used, but when this ran out he used an ointment made up of egg
yolk, rose oil and turpentine instead. Not only did this work better than oil, but it was also less
painful. However, it should be noted that Pare would not have had the opportunity to discover this
new treatment without the presence of war. Furthermore, the amount of casualties due to war
enabled surgeons to experiment with new surgical techniques which led to many developments
which greatly improved knowledge about surgery and anatomy. For example, head wounds were
particularly common during war which led to the surgery of the eye, ear, throat and nose improving
rapidly.
In conclusion, surgical knowledge has improved at different times due to different factors, often
working together to lead to improvements. Ultimately, war has been the most influential factor as it
enabled many key individuals to test and discover new surgical procedures. However, one could
argue that key individuals were often dependant on the support of the government to aid the
development of their ideas.
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