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EVOLUTION OF THE SCALPEL by Esteban Melean Class: Intro to Engineering Desing. What Is the Scalpel?. Is a small blade. Extremely sharp. Used for: surgery, anatomical dissection, and craft. Timeline: 1) 3000 B.C ; Ancient Mesopotamia. Recent discovery of the metals.
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EVOLUTION OF THE SCALPELby Esteban MeleanClass: Intro to Engineering Desing
What Is the Scalpel? • Is a small blade. • Extremely sharp. • Used for: surgery, anatomical dissection, and craft.
Timeline:1) 3000 B.C ; Ancient Mesopotamia • Recent discovery of the metals. • First surgeries attempted. • Ancient copper knives were used.
2) 2500 B.C ; Ancient Egypt. • Made of copper and sharpened obsidian. • Specialized for specifics parts of the body. • Used to remove organs for mummifications.
3) 1700 B.C; Bronze Scalpels • Used in Egypt for mummification. • Used in Babylon for surgeries according to the code of Hammurabi. • The scalpels were made of bronze; An alloy of copper and tin.
4) Last Centuries B.C; India. • According to the the surgical textbook, Sushruta Samhita. • They started using sharp bamboo splinters. • Then made scalpels of obsidian and the first made of steel.
5) First Century A.D; Rome. • Romans used scalpels of bronze and steel and developed superior metallurgical techniques to made them. • They learned superior medical techniques, and create a variety on instruments. They had for example ,some double-ended scalpels that must have taken a careful surgeon to use
6) Medieval Times. • All kinds of variations and strange knives. • Because of the flourishing of autopsies and dissections of the body . • But, there were not big advance in the technology.
7) 15th to 19th Century: Folding Scalpel. • It fit in the pocket and because it folded, it stayed sharp and didn’t tear up the physicians’ clothes. • These blades fold into tortoise or horn handles. • 19th century scalpels have blade stops at 180 degrees and many lock open. • They were very finely made.
8) 1860’s-1970’s: Fixed Blade Scalpels. • First they had handles of bone, ivory, horn or wood. • But then all the piece began to be made of steel after 1970’s.
9) 1920’s: Stainless Steel Scalpel. • In 1912 the English metallurgist Harry Brearley invents stainless steel. • 1919-1923 Sheffield cutlers start the production of surgical scalpels. • These blades doest not rust and are stronger.
10) 20th Century: The Modern Surgical Scalpel. • It is made of 440C stainless steel. • It is formed by 2 parts : the blade and the handle. • Only the blade of the scalpel is metal; The handles are plastic and are made to be thrown away. • It has 15+ different types of blade for surgery purpose.
11) 1955, Diamond Scalpel. • Invented by the Venezuelan scientific Humberto Fernandez Moran. • It possesses an extremely sharp and hard diamond cutting edge. • Used to make ultra fine cuts in biological tissue; Or in mineral, as lunar rocks or silver.
12) 1967, Gamma Knife. • Invented by the Swedish neurosurgeon professor Lars Leksell. • Uses high-energy light beams (x-rays, gamma rays), or charged particles (electron beams or protons beams). • To damage the DNA of tumor cells . • And does not make incisions in the patient.
13) 1975, Plasma Scalpel. • Invented by Frank P. Incropera & William J. Link. • Uses a high temperature argon gas plasma, ionized at 3000 degrees C. • It is Capable of simultaneous division of tissue and coagulation of blood vessels. • Can be use under MRI.
14) 1980’s , Laser Scalpel. • Using different technologies depending on the patent. • It Produces a high-intensity beam of invisible infra-red light. • The laser beam ablates or vaporizes the soft tissue with high water content, cutting living biological tissue. • Can be used under MRI.
Its Effects on the Society. • Thanks to the scalpel we have today an instrument that allows the surgeon to open de body and access the internal organs; And with it: • Surgeries that save lives removing tumors. • Surgeries that can put or remove objects from our body (as bullets or artificial heart valves). • Organs transplants. • Plastic surgeries. • Autopsies. • The knowledge of the human anatomy, and basis of the modern medicine. • The knowledge of modern botany and zoology.
Works Cited : • Carlisle, Rodney P. , “Stainless Steel”. “Scientific American inventions and discoveries”. 2004. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. USA. Pg 380. • Collum, Laura. “Tools of the Trade: Surgical Knives and Scalpels”. ”Worth Point”. 05/15/2009. 09/12/2009. <http://www.worthpoint.com/blog-entry/tootls-trade-surgical-knives/>. • Klein, Joan E. , “Surgical Instruments from Ancient Rome”.”University of Virginia Health system”. 2009. 09/11/2009. <http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/artifacts/roman_surgical/>. • N / A, “Medicine: Laser Scalpel”. ”TIME”. Monday, Aug. 06, 1973. 09/12/2009. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,904021,00.html/>. • N / A, “Surgical instruments”. ”Medical discoveries in Medicine”. 2007. 09/11/2009. <http://www.discoveriesinmedicine.com/ Ra-Thy/Surgical-Instruments.html/>. • N / A, “US Patent 3991764 - Plasma arc scalpel”. ”Patent Storm”. 2004. 09/12/2009. <http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/3991764/fulltext.html/>. • N / A, “Scalpel”. ”Wikipedia”. 2009. 09/11/2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalpel/>.