Surgery


Scalpel, surgical (5)

Bistouri SAVIGNY
 

 

Surgical knife with foldable blade. Parts: Handle and blade (French chasse, lame, English handle, blade).

 

Bistouri by the English manufacturer John Honoré SAVIGNY, 1820-50.

Length unfolded 13.9 cm; closed 9.0 cm; Width 1.1 cm; Thickness 0.4 cm.

Placing the blade in a 2 mm round recess on the handle, no latching. Therefore, dating to the 1st to the early 2nd third of the 19th century

Length of the blade 7,8 cm.

Length of sharpened blade 4.1 cm

                 Tortoiseshell straight bistouri scalpel circa 1830/40.

                 Blade is not locking; maker marked.

Origin: Sofia / Bulgaria

 

The bistouri traces back to the early days of English surgery: John ABERNETHY (1764-1831), who invented a digestive biscuit, Astley Paston COOPER (1768-1841), who first stopped the abdominal aorta, James SYME (1799-1870), the He invented new amputation techniques - he was the first to drop a leg in his hip in Scotland. His daughter Agnes (1834-1893) married the great surgeon Joseph Lister (1827-1912). We owe Lister that surgical intervention can be a humanly safe treatment. Before he set up his "antiseptic principle" in 1867, even the smallest operation was associated with a mortal danger. Sepsis did not always occur, but the constant uncertainty about the outcome of surgical treatment was even more distressing to Lister's contemporaries when the discovery of ether anesthesia (1846) and chloroform anesthesia (1847) gave them the opportunity to operate painlessly. One could venture larger interventions and was no longer as under pressure as the surgeons of the 18th and early 19th century. At that time one leg was amputated in 30 seconds! It was precisely this easing of the operation that increased the risk of infection: the longer the surgeon tampered with his fingers, his instruments and sponges in the patient's body, the less the infection could be avoided, the more frequently septic death occurred. Since one did not know the true cause - the transmission of bacteria as germs of disease - one sought the reason for it in unfavorable influences of the soil or the air (Miasmen), in the bad constitution or the unstable condition of the sick. But also the narrowness and uncleanliness of the hospitals was an issue.