Pain and Surgery in England,circa1620–circa1740

Abstract

Abstract:The scholarship on the discussion and role of pain in early modern English surgery is limited. Scholars have given little consideration to how surgeons described and comprehended pain in their patients' bodies in early modern England, including how these understandings connected to notions of the humours, nerves and sex difference. This article focuses on the attention that surgeons paid to pain in their published and manuscript casebooks and manuals available in English, circa 1620-circa 1740. Pain was an important component of surgery in early modern England, influencing diagnosis, treatment and technique. Surgeons portrayed a complex and multi-dimensional understanding of their patients' bodies in pain, which was further connected to their portrayals of their professional ability.

Pathologies, Actions, Ideas

“…Male castration was not common, but it was practised as a last resort in cases of cancer. 49 This proved to practitioners that a man could survive without his generative organs, and by analogy, it seemed possible a woman could survive without hers. The crucial difference between the sexes was not so much any vital difference in their nature but that removing the female generative organs meant entering the peritoneum and thus entailed a considerably more complex and dangerous surgical operation.…”