Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1904 — The Earliest Surgeons. [ARTICLE]

The Earliest Surgeons.

Surgery is said to be older than medicine, and probably, in its simplest offices, it is as old as human need for it. Skulls of the neolithic period give evidence that the operation qf trepanning was then practiced. The Hindoo surgeon Susruta. who lived several centuries before Christ, had more than a hundred different sorts of surgical instruments, and there is abundant proof that his countrymen were skilled in amputation, lithotomy and operations for hernia, fistula and even for restoring lost ears and noses. Hippocrates, who lived 400 B. C., was a skillful surgeon, and discoveries by Ebers and others in Egypt prove that the ancient Egyptians practiced surgery, with suitable instruments, nearly G.OOO years ago. Among the six hermetic books of medicine mentioned by Clement of Alexandria was one devoted to surgical instruments. The Greeks are thought to have learned the Hindoo methods, and the Romans were skilled in surgery.