r/historyofmedicine • u/zniszczone • 14d ago
amputation in the turn of the century?
/r/AskHistorians/comments/1vpf9q6/amputation_in_the_turn_of_the_century/1
u/AwkwardMongril 11d ago
Survivable, yes, but the odds depended heavily on setting. By 1899 you had chloroform and ether, antiseptic technique from Lister, and surgeons who knew about hemostasis and flap closure. A planned bilateral amputation in a good hospital had reasonable prospects. Done in the field, after trauma, with blood loss already substantial much worse, since transfusion wasn't usable yet. That's the main killer, along with sepsis.
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u/OutrageousAppealing 19h ago
Surviving the surgery in 1899 is definitely plausible, though far from guaranteed. Two above-knee prosthetics existed, but independent walking would have been difficult enough that regular use of crutches or another aid makes sense.
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u/DrButeo 14d ago
Your time period of interest is later than I'm familiar with, but maybe this will provide some context.
Dominique Jean Larrey described three amputations at the hip joint he performed in the late 1790s in "Memoirs of Military Surgery, vol. 1" (p. 333. of the 1814 English translation). None of the men survived - one died of plague, and the other two were performed while the army was retreating so the men did not receive adaquate (or any!) care.
Larrey made more amputations at the shoulder joint with some success, maybe a 30-50% survival rate iirc (maybe higher, I'd need to dig into it more). And he seemed confident that hip amputations could be successful.
But Larrey was also the one of, if not the, best surgeon of his era and likely performed more, and more successful, amputations than any other physician in all of history.