Operating theatre
(LOW HUM)
(MEDICAL INSTRUMENTS ARE CHOSEN AND DROPPED INTO METAL BOWL)
EDUCATED MIDDLE-AGED ENGLISHMAN: Incision knife. Amputation knife, single-edged. A dismembering knife. Catlin, double-edged, long. Metrotrome: twin-bladed, double-edged.
Bone chisel. Bone gouge. A catheter. Cupping glasses. Cauterising irons. Gorget. Head saw. Dismembering saw. Bladder trocar. Trephine. Bone saw. Speculum. Screw. Probe. A fleam. A small razor. Forceps. Forceps for teeth. Retractor. Surgical scissors. Curette. Uvula spoon. Mortar and pestle.
Weights and scales. Spatula. Tape. Sponges. Clowts.
Stitching quill and needles, green or red silk thread.
In time of war let him provide these instruments following, which are seldom used but then:
Crow’s bill forceps. Bullet extractor tool. Parabellum. Incision shears. Screw, probe.
A case of lancets always in his pockets.
(THE CLICK OF A SMALL METAL TOOL BEING DROPPED ON A TABLE)
**Sensor activated - video transcript**
Edinburgh, 1855
My dear Mr Simpson,
Before the days of anesthetics, a patient preparing for an operation was like a condemned criminal preparing for execution.
He counted the days till the appointed day came. He counted the hours of that day till the appointed hour came.
He listened for the echo on the street of the surgeons’ carriage.
He watched for his pull at the door-bell; for his foot on the stair; for his step in the room; for the production of his dreaded instruments; for his few grave words, and his last preparations before beginning.
And then, he surrendered his liberty, and revolting at the necessity, submitted to be held or bound and helplessly gave himself up to the cruel knife....
The operation was a more tedious one than some, which involved much greater mutilation - it necessitated cruel cutting through inflamed and morbidly sensitive parts, and could not be dispatched by a few swift strokes of the knife.
Of the agony it occasioned I will say nothing. Suffering so great as I underwent cannot be expressed in words… the black whirlwind of emotion, the horror of great darkness and the sense of desertion by God and man bordering close upon despair, which swept through my mind and overwhelmed my heart, I can never forget, however gladly I would do so.
I have recently read, with mingled sadness and surprise, the declarations of some surgeons that anesthetics are needless luxuries and that unendurable agony is the best of tonics. Those surgeons I think, can scarcely have been patients of their brother surgeons.
To make a patient incognisant of the surgeon's proceedings is assuredly to save him from much present and much future self-torture, and to give to him thereby a much greater likelihood of recovery. I plead therefore for the administration of anesthetics on the grounds enumerated.
When I first heard that anesthetics had been discovered, I could not and would not believe it. I have since thanked God many a time - that he has put it into your heart, and into that of other wise and humane men, to devise so simple and so safe a way of lessening pain.
Yours most truly.
An old patient.
**END**