Surgery

• The main problems with surgery were pain, blood loss and infection
• James Simpson discovered chloroform in 1847
• Chloroform was used to put patients into an unconscious state during operations so they wouldn't feel the pain
• The Church and the British Army banned the use of chloroform
• Before the discovery of nitrous oxide, ether and chloroform, opium and hemlock were used
• Louis Pasteurs Germ Theory allowed the development of antiseptic, then aseptic surgery
• Joseph Lister’s carbolic acid killed germs before and after surgery