Summary of Ira Rutkow's Empire of the Scalpel

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The history of surgery began with the discovery of cavemen who had performed neurosurgery. The skulls were found to have been trepanned, or deliberately removed a large portion of their craniums.

#2 The ancient skulls that were found showed that Stone Age surgeons were able to perform complex surgery, such as trephination, which was the removal of part of the skull to treat convulsions, epileptic fits, mental illness, and other neurological maladies.

#3 The stele, which was carved out of black basalt, is the most complete legal compendium of Antiquity. It was written and sculpted by the legendary Hammurabi, ruler of the Amorite dynasty of ancient Babylon, and was defaced and flaunted as a trophy of war in the twelfth century BC.

#4 The surgeon was considered lower than the priest/ physician in Babylonian society, and the notion of caveat chirurgicus was established. If a surgeon had treated a gentleman for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and caused his death, he would be punished by having his hands cut off.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669390985

IRB Media

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Insights on Ira Rutkow's Empire of the Scalpel

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The history of surgery began with the discovery of cavemen who had performed neurosurgery. The skulls were found to have been trepanned, or deliberately removed a large portion of their craniums.

#2

The ancient skulls that were found showed that Stone Age surgeons were able to perform complex surgery, such as trephination, which was the removal of part of the skull to treat convulsions, epileptic fits, mental illness, and other neurological maladies.

#3

The stele, which was carved out of black basalt, is the most complete legal compendium of Antiquity. It was written and sculpted by the legendary Hammurabi, ruler of the Amorite dynasty of ancient Babylon, and was defaced and flaunted as a trophy of war in the twelfth century BC.

#4

The surgeon was considered lower than the priest/ physician in Babylonian society, and the notion of caveat chirurgicus was established. If a surgeon had treated a gentleman for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and caused his death, he would be punished by having his hands cut off.

#5

The Smith Papyrus is the world’s earliest known surgical document. It was written in Egypt around 1600 BC, and it reads like a modern textbook. It contains detailed descriptions of the brain and skull, ears and face, neck and throat, arms and shoulders, and ribs and spine.

#6

The healing arts in Egypt were unaffected by foreign influence for thousands of years. Around 500 BC, Greek physicians came to Egypt and influenced Egyptian Medicine, which was replaced by different ways of thinking. The tenets of Egyptian surgery, its independence from the mystical, were lost.

#7

The library of Alexandria was a classicist and humanist project of King Ptolemy. He gathered all the knowledge of the ancients under a single title, and paid well-paid scholars to translate manuscripts from past civilizations.

#8

The Hippocratic-based belief that health is based on a balance of four fluids in the body, which can be explained through nature, apart from religion and speculation, remained prevalent in Greek medicine.

#9

The Hippocratic Oath is the most well-known of the Corpus’s writings. It is a pledge of trust to your patients and peers, and a vow to serve others and share your craft’s knowledge with future generations.

#10

The origins of the Hippocratic Oath are unclear, but it is believed that it was written a century or two after Hippocrates’s death. It has been modified and even superseded over the centuries as a declaration of professional ethics.

#11

The Romans had a negative attitude towards physicians, as they were considered unbecomingly manual labor. However, they did not shun writing about medicine, as two authors wielded the most influential and prolific surgical