Stuart

Medicine

William Harvey was discovering how the blood circulated, but out in ordinary life medicine was being practised much as it had been for centuries.

On the battlefields of the Civil War only the rich had access to master surgeons, although their skills were little different to their less trained helpers. If a soldier had to have a crushed leg or arm amputated, the bleeding stump was sealed with hot tar or pitch.

Hot irons were used to cauterise open wounds - stop the bleeding and sear any rotting flesh. Ambroise Pare had developed methods of tying broken blood vessels with silk threads (ligatures) in Tudor times, but it took a long while for his ideas to become accepted.

Why is the patient biting on a piece of leather?

Click the picture for an answer.