Cauterisation

[barbie jacey]

heya everyone! Im just helping out my sister on her history presentaion. As a key point they have to discuss Cauterisation: now i know what cauterisation is however the presentation is titles "medicine in the middle ages" - what is the connection? thank you in advance from Jacey and Livey!

[:Ace:]

During a war (can't remember what it was called, even though i just had my history exam last week), Ambroise Pare ran out of boiling oil, which the surgeons used to use to cauterise wounds. He then made his own mixture using turpentine, egg yolks and rose petals. He would also tie off veins and arteries with silk threads, although wounds often became infected since germ theory had not yet been developed and they were tied with dirty hands.

Hope this helps.

:Ace:

[joko]

not sure i understand your problem, but i guess you have to research how they cauterised wounds in the middle ages...!

such as heated knives etc

[barbie jacey]

oh yes! good point! thanks joko and :Ace: for all your help! i hope i can repay it sometime

Jacey and little Livey

[Octavius]

As joko says, your Q is not exactly clear as cauterisation was a method of healing wounds quickly when there was not enough time for full/proper surgery. For example, in battlefields when limbs were severed or from general arrow wounds etc. However....

You should also look into barbering (barber-surgeons) and bloodletting for a particularly gory advancement in surgical procedures.

'The Chirurgia of Roger Frugard', which was written in Latin in Italy around 1180 mentions oral cancer and suggests surgery.

It recommends that in the acute stages the disease can be cured by cutting into the normal flesh around the cancer, cauterising the wound and then sealing it with egg yolk before washing it with wine.

After three days the wound should be rubbed with alum before applying a lotion made from wine and honey and infused with the roots of the herb mullein; honeysuckle, pomegranate and ginger.

Another ABer was recently looking for some very similar information, so if you look under this topic for Q's by Gale Snail there are some medieval medicine links there. Alternatively the BBC website has some very good information on this very subject.

[Octavius]

correction: when I said 'healing wounds' I actually meant 'sealing wounds before infection set in'