Surgery


Scissors for plaster by STILLE

 

 

Since prehistoric times, wooden rails have been known in association with other thermosetting materials, such as e.g. Clay or clay. Apparently, the hardening bandage was already known to the great medieval surgeon RHAZES - he described associations of clay with added protein, which he not only described but also used. The durability of these materials left much to be desired.



In 1773, the British diplomat Eaton reported on an association made by Turkish surgeons in Constantinople: rails made of wood bound with masonry plaster.



As a witness of Napoleon's last great battles, Louis Joseph Ghislain SEUTIN (1793-1862) of Nivelles, "chirurgien aide-major" of "Grande Armée", was appalled by the barbaric treatment of the arm and leg fractures. In 1835 he developed a bandage of linen bandages to immobilize the fractures. The bandages consisted of rails and strength, hence the name "bandages amidonnés", and took two days to dry - which was particularly unsuitable for soldiers during the battle. In 1845, the Berlin surgeon Johann Friedrich DIEFFENBACH (1792-1847), the creator of plastic surgery, developed his "plâtre coulé". At first, DIEFFENBACH was a doctor at the Charité and then became director of the university clinic on Ziegelstraße.



The Dutch army surgeon Antonius MATHIJSEN (1805-1878) decided on a combination of cotton and gypsum: the dressing was cheap (a weighty argument in the Dutch army!), The dressings were easy to put on and take off, but they remained good clinging to the arm or leg, drying rapidly and being so stable that the wall thickness and thus the weight could remain relatively low: MATHIJSEN developed in 1851 predecessors of today's plaster bandages by sprinkling powdered plaster on a bandage, which acted as a carrier material. In 1852 MATHIJSEN went public with his invention and soon the plaster began its triumphant advance in civil medicine. Antonius MATHIJSEN was born on 4.11.1805 in Budel as the son of the surgeon Ludovicus Hermanus (Lodewijk Herman) MATHIJSEN and his wife Petronella Bogaers. Studied in Brussels, ship surgeon at the Dutch Navy. In the Netherlands, where they are very proud of the inventor of the plaster cast, there is now a training as a clinical "plaster master". They overlook the fact that MATHIJSEN died in Hamont-Achel in Belgium (stela there in Achel in northern Limburg): the Netherlands honored MATHIJSEN with a stamp in 1941.

In 1930 Fa. Lohmann launched the first fixed textile plaster bandage, the "Cellona bandage".

 

Plaster scissors
But how to remove the stone-hard bandages without endangering the patient? In 1856, the Belgian gave SEUTIN a device to split the bandages. In 1875, the Swedish instrument maker Albert STILLE (1814-1893) invented an extremely robust pair of scissors with a sliding mechanism that not only pinches the bandage, but saws through it - in parrot form - as the two branches shift against each other. "Gipsschneidezange n. Stille", "cisailles à plâtre de Stille" frz., "Stille plaster shears" engl.



The presented scissors from the 50s comes from the fund of the luxemburg surgeon Roger FROMES (1924-1998), whose name is engraved on the instrument.