During the nineteenth century operating theatre were not a very sterile environment and often infection would be spread by the doctors themselves. Doctors would wear their oldest coats, which were not changed for months. These coats would be coated with blood and puss. The threads that were used to tie up the wound would be attached to the coat and thus spread germs from the coat to patients.
Another way that surgeons also spread infection was through probes that they would use to examine patients and point things out to students. These probes would neither be washed nor wiped from patient to patient.
Medical students would also spread infection in an operating theatre. They would often come and operate on a patient after dissecting a corpse.
The tools that were used in an operating theatre would also spread infection. In the 1880s wooden-handled tools and wounds would be constantly dabbed with the same sponge increasing the possibility of infection.
A patient would have more chance of surviving an operation which took place in a doctor’s surgery than in a hospital.
Infection was a common factor after surgery and need to be improved. Although letting scabs form or would leave the ligatures hanging out of a wound to drain pus and infection into a dressing to stop infection was a successful method of stopping infection it was far from perfect.
Although antiseptic was introduced by John Lister it burnt patients, therefore experimentation still carried on.
During the nineteenth century many patients suffered from excruciating pain whilst in surgery. Surgeons would use alcohol and opium to relieve pain but this was not very affective.
Methods such as hypothesis were used by John Elliotson and James Esdaile on patients. Others surgeons were very sceptical about this method though.
Sir Humphrey Davis experimented with nitrous oxide which was successful in controlling pain during surgery. His assistant later found that ether was a better anaesthetic and so this was used. However James Simpson later discovered that ether had side effects when used in child birth. Simpson then tried out chloroform in 1847 as an anaesthetic.
Overall surgical advances were needed due to the lack of medical knowledge. Anaesthetics were needed; antiseptics and knowledge about infection and bacteria were needed. Reducing the risk of surgery was another reason why improvements in surgery were needed.
