Pinpointing a specific period of time when a cutting implement became the first surgical knife depends largely on perspective. Tracing the history of this tool reflects the evolution of surgery as a culture and as a profession. The quintessential instrument of surgeons, the scalpel is the longstanding symbol of the discipline. Today’s advances in scalpel technology include additional safety measures and gemstone and polymer coatings. Later, surgeons prized speed and sharpness. Barber-surgeons embellished their scalpels as part of the art of their craft.
As surgery developed into a profession, knives dedicated to specific uses also evolved. While the word “scalpel” derives from the Latin word scallpellus, the physical instruments surgeons use today started out as flint and obsidian cutting implements during the Stone Age. The surgical knife, one of the earliest surgical instruments, has evolved over 10 millennia. For more information, please visit the ACS website. The session is sponsored each year by the Surgical History Group. Editor’s note: The following article is based on a poster presented at the History of Surgery Poster Session at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2017 in San Diego, CA. This entry was posted in Fall 2018 by mbarretttzannes. “Obsidian.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.,, Additional Readings/videos “Obsidian.” Geology, /rocks/obsidian.shtml.īritannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “How Stone Age Blades Still Cut It in Surgery.” CNN, Cable News Network, 2 Apr. The scalpels can also be helpful for patients who might be allergic to the materials used for most surgical tools, such as steel and metal. Obsidian tools have their time and place. Green also knows that using obsidian in medicine is a technique is not useful for every procedure and for every surgeon. Green receives his obsidian scalpels from an expert flint knapper, Errett Callahan. While it may seem odd to be using tools from the stone age in modern medicine, the blades being used today are different than those of ancient humans. These scalpels can be used for precise cutting in surgery. Green has observed that following procedures with obsidian scalpels, patients experience much less scarring than in the same procedure done with steel tools.Ī modern obsidian scalpel. Obsidian’s makeup creates a smooth and continuous edge on a blade, while regular steel tools have a rough edge on their blades at a microscopic level, which can tear into tissue and leave the patient with a longer healing process and more intense scarring. Lee Green at the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta says it is not uncommon for him to use obsidian blades in his work. For its extreme sharpness, modern surgeons have continued to utilize obsidian tools in their work, especially in precise surgeries. An obsidian blade measures in at only 30 angstroms, making it very useful in precise cutting. The average household razor blade is somewhere between 300 and 600 angstroms (unit of measurement used to measure blade fineness). Obsidian has incredibly useful and unique properties. Obsidian is especially useful for its sharp properties, and this is the reason obsidian tools are still on the market and being studied and used in the twenty first century. Arrowheads would only be found in areas where hunting by bow and arrow was prevalent. Two arrowheads produced from obsidian through the process of knapping.
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