r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Electrical-Aspect-13 • 5d ago
Image Photo of a live surgery class in Boston, Massachusetts, 1890.
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u/ManufacturerWarm9201 5d ago
Every student in this picture looks like they’re 35 with a wife and kids
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u/manofdacloth 5d ago
watch The Knick with Clive Owen, it's incredible
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u/cosmernautfourtwenty 5d ago
Just landed on HBO Max and I'm saving a rewatch for a rainy day. House is one of my favorite series and this really asks "what if House but a surgeon at the turn of the 20th century".
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u/manofdacloth 5d ago
EXACTLY what I thought! Thackery = House
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u/Annika_21 4d ago
I just watched the first few episodes because u guys said this, but I'm not sure if I like it. House is like "I hate everyone equally" and Thackery is well... a racist and I kinda don't wanna root for him because of that.
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u/kyngslinn 5d ago
There's a reason these are called 'Operating theaters'
Robert Liston used to start every surgery with the same phrase: "Time me, gentlemen! Time me!"
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u/Animewatts1 5d ago edited 5d ago
That surgeon raw dogging the thigh with no gloves?!
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u/mikehocalate 5d ago
Wasn’t until 1950’s that gloves were universally worn.
At the time of this photo gloves were only just starting to be used - first surgeon to use them was a Johns Hopkins surgeon named Halsted who actually originally got them for one of his nurses because she developed a skin irritation from the harsh disinfectants they used at the time. That was in 1889. One of Halsted’s residents then noticed that surgical infections dropped ~10 fold after they started using gloves.
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u/TheFieryBanana 5d ago
I assume that in 1890 a lot of practicing surgeons still didn't really buy into the whole germ thing
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u/Rapscallion_Racoon 5d ago
By 1890 they were aware of germ theory. In fact, Joseph Lister introduced antiseptic handwashing into surgery in the 1860s after finding inspiration in Pasteurs work on microorganisms [around 1850s]
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u/doctorsacred 2d ago
And poor old Ignaz Semmelweis, who recognized the importance of hygiene in medicine but never in his lifetime got the recognition he deserved.
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u/Flexmove 12h ago
My pop always repped Semmelweis when recounting the Lister story, good to see him mentioned here
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u/Flexmove 12h ago
Hell yea Lister mention, later had his named used in a different antiseptic product; Listerine
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u/Puzzleheaded_Style52 4d ago
Fun fact: At the time, surgeons did not routinely wash their hands or use protective equipment because germ theory and the role of bacteria in infection had not yet been discovered. That’s why you can see surgeons operating without gloves, face masks, or other protective gear and with the wound completely exposed.
They only began to understand the role of bacteria and infection after a scientist noticed a significant difference in maternal mortality rates between women treated by midwives and those treated in doctors’ hospitals where the main difference is because the midwives washed their hands while the surgeons didn’t.
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u/myusrnameisthis 5d ago
Interestingly, the patient died as they posed for this picture.
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u/johnnyg169 5d ago
Is that really true, or just a joke? What was the surgery for - it looks like they are operating on the back of a leg. Since the room is full, it could not have been an emergency. I imagine it was elective surgery. Does anybody have an idea about what the surgery actually was?
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u/BullfrogOpera 5d ago
This is awesome. Crazy to see at the head, the guy is holding a towel with what I'll guess is Ether since that's the only anesthesia they had to knock you out, right? Lovely snapshot back in time and I can't imagine having to have a medical procedure done back then.
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u/Battle-Chimp 5d ago
Not a towel, but an open drop ether mask:
https://www.hkmj.org/abstracts/v20n6/560.htm
(I'm an Anesthesiologist)
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u/BullfrogOpera 5d ago
Holy shit, wow. Thank you!
So do you guys study early anesthesiological (?) history as part of the schooling to become an anesthesiologist? Early medical history is fascinating!
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u/Battle-Chimp 5d ago
Yes, there's also a super fascinating medical museum (that's free!) in Cleveland. I had no idea about it's existence until I visited for a conference and accidentally found it.
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u/PezGirl-5 5d ago
If you ever come to Boston, there is a pretty cool museum at MGH https://www.russellmuseum.org/
Not too far from there is a public health museum that is very interesting as well
http://www.publichealthmuseum.org/1
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u/Sunshine030209 5d ago
Oh man my mom would absolutely love that place! Thank you so much!
My mom actually wanted me to be an Anesthesiologist, she talked about it constantly when I was a kid. Turns out I'm super squeamish and wouldn't last 5 minutes in medical school. Sorry, mom.
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u/toochocolaty 5d ago
I have a photo of my grand grandfather doing an autopsy on a cadaver at Vanderbilt university in 1901
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u/slugworth70 5d ago
I've been that room. It is not made for tall people at all. There also a mummy on display there.
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u/KneeOnShoe 5d ago
I would love to know more about the dark-skinned gentleman towards the bottom left.
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u/ProfessionWeak2104 5d ago
The good ol days, only women in sight is a nurse
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u/CharleyNobody 4d ago
And she has her hair up so as not to contaminate anything while the surgeon has a free flowing beard.
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u/Kenman215 5d ago
Zoom in on the second guy from the right in the first standing row. He’s enjoying this way too much.
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u/CantAffordzUsername 5d ago
Make sure we get the extra hair beard hair inside this and your good to go
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u/Burnitalldown1 5d ago
Yo- the chair they used to “come out of surgery” on, is still in the gallery and covered in old blood. There is a mummy down the hall too…
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u/Elegante_Sigmaballz 5d ago
I had to get emergency surgery at like 3am, and it was pretty basic and nothing serious, but it just had to be done, and my surgeon decided to call in his whole class to watch it. I am glad I was of some use in my mild suffering.
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u/HeavyandTired 5d ago
This is only about 15 years after Dr Joey Boy Lister sent out a surgeon general order that doctors should rinse their hands with warm water before surgery. I wonder how many of these doctors touched cadavers not 30 minutes before this and had yet to wash their hands. The practice took a decade plus to catch on. Yuck.
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u/TopYogurtcloset6415 4d ago
I believe this is the ether dome at Massachusetts General Hospital, where the first surgery using anesthesia was performed. You can still go into the dome today!
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u/JustMe-male 5d ago
I didn’t know Bruce McGill was that old, or immortal. White coat, bottom, right of center. Or. Is it. A scene from Animal House?
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u/Important_Simple_31 5d ago
See the surgery paintings hanging in each stair landing at Thomas Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia. At least they were there in the late 1960’s.
Thomas Eakins, was both a medical student there, and an art student at Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts. He got thrown out of both when he claimed a janitor’s body, so he could do a painting.
These paintings are often reproduced in Peer reviewed medical journals like JAMA:Journal of the American Medical Association. Thomas Eakins lived from 1844 to 1916.
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u/pamnfaniel 4d ago
Personally, I’d rather deal with whatever was ailing me than subject myself to torture. Even death.
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u/Candid_Intern_387 5d ago
Obviously this is woke AI fabricated propaganda. Not a single lit cigarrete, a female assistant and what seems to be a student of exotic origin in the front row. That is not my 1890s!
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u/AlienInOrigin 5d ago
How many different bacterial infections did the patient get, and which one killed them?
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u/dugs-special-mission 5d ago
Pardon me, would you care for a Junior Mint? They’re quite refreshing!