Humans treating humans for illness or injury goes back much much further in our history than written records, so we have to study artifacts and the fossil record to learn about ancient medical practices. The oldest surgery we know about dates to more than 30,000 years ago, when a child's lower leg was amputated. The bones show evidence of deliberate cutting, plus healing, indicating that the patient lived for several years afterward. As amazing as that is, it doesn't tell the whole story. We don't have preserved evidence of soft tissue from people that far back, but we do know that early humans harnessed natural remedies even when we were Neanderthals. Still, "medical care" is defined by people taking care of other people, and there is evidence of early humans who wouldn't have survived long with the infirmities they were found to have unless others were caring for them. This evidence involves assumptions, because we don't know what that care involved. These practices could have happened long before we were humans. This video is shorter than it looks, as the last minute and a half are promotional.
Thursday, March 21, 2024
The Earliest Surgery
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2 comments:
Seems it would be natural to want to help another member of the family or tribe in distress. Through trial and error, probably mostly by accident, they would discover stuff that helped. Then the key was communication between groups to share their discoveries, building an oral data base.
xoxoxoBruce
I would have to look for the quote but read that someone asked an anthropologist about the earliest sign of civilization found. It was the discovery of a healed broken leg. It indicated that we had progressed to where we were capable of caring for another individual and had allowed them to heal from what would have been a fatal injury.
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