Ancient Pain-killers

Pain-killers in Ancient Medicine

Now that the basics of pain have been explained, it is necessary to understand how pain affects everyday life. From the moment we are aware of our existence and our need of preservation, everything we do is meant to avoid ourselves from having pain. When a person has a phobia, for example, towards spiders, they are not actually scared of them; this person`s true fear is of being hurt or killed by the spider. We are not actually scared of heights, but of falling down and feeling pain, or worst, dying. We live as we live, always wanting to improve, in expectance of living, a pleasant existence, pain free and far away from dead. The first humans knew this too, and because of this, medicine was created to avoid, decrease, prevent, and eventually cure this pain that we are all trying to escape away from.

Surgical Procedures

In extreme cases, of course, eating a specific plant or expecting the pain to cease was not enough, so the surgery pioneers started experimenting on many types of surgeries, often considered brute plain procedures, but they had amazing results. Of course, some surgeries had no physical reason, but were made because of other factors, as superstitious believes.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is well known as one of the first civilizations that had a clear idea of how to cure several diseases. In ancient Mesopotamia, writers used clay tablets to record about their civilization and hundreds of these tablets, talking exclusively of medicine, have been found. By translating these tablets, it is now known that in Mesopotamia, a lot of diseases where correctly diagnosed and treated. They even used plants for certain aches, these plants are currently used to produce the medications for the same diseases (www.indiana.edu).

As it has been concluded by reading these tablets, there were two types of healers in Ancient Mesopotamia. The first one was called ashipu or sorcerer, people would go to him when feeling ill or suffering a wound. This sorcerer would discover which god had caused such disease and after discovering what illness the patient had, the ashipu would refer the patient to the second type of healer, the asu or the physician. This healer was the one that created medicaments out of plants and would treat the sick. When someone had a flesh wound, the wound was cleaned, clean bandages were administrated and certain medicinal plasters where applied. “All three of these techniques of the Asu appear in the world´s oldest known medical document (c. 2100 BCE.)”. (www.indiana.edu).

 But healers from this ancient and wise civilization were not only able to cure diseases, but they also performed successfully some primitive surgeries. The most common surgeries were broken bones put back into their place, abscesses and tumor were also removed.

Cranial Surgery (Trepanning)

           

            “The word “trepanation” comes from the Greek trypanon, which means drill”. (Tiesler, 1). According to medical literature, it is a surgical operation of the skull cap with

therapeutical purposes, and the opening of the skull could be made by drilling attrition, cutting or other techniques. This procedure is specially seen in Mesoamerica, in ancient civilizations like the Mayans (Tiesler, 1).

           

Unlike the cephalic surgeries where the brain tissues are operated, trepanation consists only on the making of the hole, but the brain is not affected. At least in theory, because in a real life procedure, patients can face from immediate death to short-term survival.

           

What is most fascinating is the fact that this dangerous surgery is still practiced in some communities of Africa, Polynesia and Melanesia. What must be understood is that this surgery is helpful because it releases the pressure inside the skull, which can be very painful. These civilizations did this procedure not to relieve pain but to take out evil spirits or even to open a third karma-seeing eye (Tiesler, 1).

           

In 1997 the most ancient evidence of this procedure was found in France, and it is a 7000 years old skull with two holes on it. There are many skulls belonging to the Bolivian Aymaras with holes on them and also a lot of Andean societies used this surgery very often. Even the famous Mayans used treppaning, but the reasons why they did it are still unknown (Tiesler, 1).

Neolithic France

The Earliest Amputation

            Evidence from the first successful amputation comes from France, 65 kilometers South from Paris. A group of archeologists were working on an Early Neolithic Tomb when they discovered a body of an elderly man whose tomb was bigger than the rest. Evidently he was an important person, not only because of its tomb´s size, but because he was buried with some objects and even the remains of a young animal (www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk).

But what amazed the archeologists was the fact that the bones from the arm and hand were missing from this man. Further analysis proved that the arm was removed while he was still alive and that it was not the cause of his death. This proves that the man´s arm was willingly taken away from him. He was prepared for the operation, and even some painkiller must have been administered to him because evidence shows that the man must have been very still during the amputation. Obviously, the people performing this operation had medical knowledge, but also they were aware of the importance of doing this amputation in aseptic conditions, because the arm presented no remains of an infection. Probably some plants were used to clean and later to maintain the wound sterilized. This discovery demonstrates that advanced medical knowledge was present in Europe in 4900 BC, and that this major surgery was likely to have been more common than what we realize (www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk). It must be considered that this operation is still very complicated. And if we add this fact to the conditions in that time, it could be seen that it was a really amazing achievement.

Surgical Tools

           

Dozens of surgical instruments were found in Pompeii in a house known as “The House of the Surgeon”. This is one of the most ancient and famous houses of the destroyed city of Pompeii. It was destroyed in the year 79 AD with the eruption of the Mount Vesuvius and later on discovered in the year 1770 by the Spanish Frances de la Vega. It has its name and it became so famous because of what was found in there. Inside the house, de la Vega discovered some tools that must have been used in surgeries because they are almost equal in shape and function to those used until de 19th Century. In fact, a lot of tools used until de 19th Century were actually based on this Pompeii´s tools. The technology of some of these tools did not change much until late 20th Century, as in the case of the vaginal speculum (www.hsl.virginia.edu).

           

As might have been already guessed, in order to be so well preserved, these tools were made of metal, and extremely strong and resistant. But what must be the most important discovery that was concluded from these tools was the vast quantity of complex surgeries that were made during that time. The vaginal speculum is by far the rarest surviving medical instrument; its basic design is even used in current gynecology (fig 1). This instrument tells us that in 79 AD and before, healers already used this to diagnose and treat vaginal and uterine disorders (www.hsl.virginia.edu).

           

Some other tools had a more basic purpose. For example de la Vega found cupping vessels for bloodletting. These are containers where blood was poured when an extraction (or bloodletting) was made. Two sizes of these containers were found, and it is believed that one was used for big areas like the back or tights and the smaller one could have been used in arms. (Fig 2)

           

The whole Surgeon´s equipments consist of many more tools. They vary from a rectum speculum to some sort of male catheter (fig 3). Also, there were found a lot of tools called bone levelers (fig 4). They were used for putting a broken bone back to its original place and even to move teeth to a more “esthetic” position. Another tool was employed at an incredible extent in Ancient Surgery, it was the Tile Cautery. (Fig 5). This metallic tool was heated and when paced in tissue it fulfilled a cauterizing function (www.hsl.virginia.edu).

  

(Fig. 1)                                               (Fig. 2)                                               (Fig. 3)

            

            (Fig 4)                                                (Fig 5)

Pain-stopping substances

Plants

Plants have always been used to stop pain. As a matter of fact, current medicaments are made using components extracted from plants, so it is no surprise that ancient healers developed some kind of knowledge when it came to curing with plants. For example, we can find the Juniper plant. It is a coniferous plant of the Cyprus family. But in ancient times and even current naturalist assure us that it cures chronic pain, osteoarthritis and even nerve pain. But if we are talking about medicine plants, the Chinese and Indians must be discussed, because their knowledge in this area was bast, especially with the use of opium (en.wikipedia.org).

Opium

            Opium is a latex obtained from the plant Opium Poppy or Papaver somniferum. Opium contains 12% of morphine, an alkaloid used in medicine but if processed I can be transformed into heroin, which is twice as powerful as morphine (en.wikipedia.org). The common method of obtaining opium is to scratch the immature seed of the poppy plant.

           

There is evidence that the poppy plant was cultivated for food, anesthesia and ritual purposes in the Neolithic Age. Ancient civilization like Indians or Egyptians used opium for performing surgeries, because its effects allowed surgeons to perform long-lasting surgeries (en.wikipedia.org). In that period of time, opium was the most potent anesthetic at hand, and that is why it was used until the American Civil War, because of the discovery of morphine. Morphine has the same effect but it is more concentrated so the right doses can be easily measured and administrated. (en.wikipedia.org).

Muds and Clays

            Muds were used by ancient civilizations in promoting health in animals and humans. Some clays like Bentonite and Pascalite have been used by indigenous cultures since before registered times. Clays have a lot of applications in medicine. For instance, clays absorb poison from your digestive system. “It has been used for alcoholism, arthritis, cataracts, diabetic neuropathy, pain treatment, open wounds, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, stomach ulcers, animal and poisonous insect bites, acne, anemia, in fact, the list of uses is too long for this article” (http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com). Besides being helpful treating inner digestal problems, some clay is really useful when applied into external flesh wounds because of their healing properties.

Pain has always existed. And so has the need to avoid or lessen it. Because of this, ancient civilizations were forced to discover all these discussed substances in order to achieve a certain level of comfort. It must be considered how amazing and advanced these civilizations must have been because, as it was already explained, they used most of the anesthetics modern doctors use up to these days. Ancient Mesopotamia lead the way in surgeries, and later on France registered the first amputation. These days, we are able to look back and be admired by how these apparently simple people discovered the effects of several plants and clays in order to survive.