HSS 2121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Barber Surgeon, Plastic Surgery, In Olden Days
4 May 2016
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Trephination: earlier kinds of surgery was drilling holes into people"s heads to release pressure and eliminate spirits no relief from headaches/seizure (didn"t understand epilepsy) didn"t in past, this was thought of only way. Now clinical trials and more people using it. Have in common: white coat, cut, often male, own a shop. Sweeney todd movie demon barber of fleet street sweeney todd is barber surgeon. Before professionalization of medicine, surgeons were part of barber class. Often illiterate and considered inferior to physicians, derived income from shaving, cutting hair, extracting teeth, and performing minor operations. During renaissance, syphilis has been rampant at times, surgeons developed techniques to develop missing noses (was side affect of syphilis). Spread frequently when went to war, not case of low poor income people who only got it, any status man contracted it. Early surgeons learnt how to give someone a nose.
