How Have The Following Factors Influenced Changes In Surgery.

Essay by shell4luisA+, July 2003

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Many factors have helped to bring about changes in surgery; they have either helped surgery to become more effective and safe or just totally changed the way surgery works.

One of the earliest uses of war was made during the 16th century, during the time Pare was alive. Pare believed that cauterisation was too painful, cauterisation had been then main way of sealing the veins and arteries after and operation, and without any anaesthetic proved to be very painful. Pare hated the idea of men being put through all this pain and so wanted to discover away of sealing the amputated limb without causing so much pain. It was through this method that he came up with the idea of ligatures. This was not as successful as he maybe though because ligatures meant that the wound was more likely to catch an infection.

War has helped in many ways to bring about changes in surgery.

One of these would definitely be Marie Curie's research into a portable x-ray machine. This was particularly effective because at the time this was discovered World War 1 was taking place and everyday soldiers were being wounded by gunshot. The portable x-ray machine helped because it meant that bullets and pieces of shrapnel could be found in the body, and then taken out, rather than the whole body having to be opened, as this would increase the risk of infection and the patient would most likely bleed to death. The fact that it was portable was very useful, as it meant that it could be transferred to the soldiers on the front line, as before, with the old x-ray machines, they would have been too big to carry around the trenches, This discovery however could not have taken place without the use of Rontgen's discovery.