It tends to be thought that surgical interventions for aesthetic purposes, such as rhinoplasty, are quite modern techniques of twentieth-century medicine, but this is not the case; There are records of plastic surgery operations that date back to ancient Egypt, and in the case of rhinoplasty, also to ancient India, although it is possible to speak properly of rhinoplasty as such from the sixteenth century, which is still surprising , and supercurious.
Could a rhinoplasty already be done in the 16th century?
If you were a 1500 warrior and in a duel with a sword your nose was severed, or if the you lost due to a disease derived from venereal pleasures and newcomers from the New World, that is, if your nose dropped due to syphilis, you might not have to resign yourself to spend the rest of your life with a deformed face, because some doctors handled surgical techniques such as rhinoplasty in the 16th century.
In fact, in 1597, the doctor Gaspare Tagliacozzi (1546-1599), professor of surgery and anatomy at the University from Bologna, I publish a book, Curtorem Chirurgia by Insitionem ( Defective surgery for i mplantes ), in which they described, with Latin texts and abundant illustrations, operations for the reconstruction of the face (nose, lips and ears), such as rhinoplasty.
The surgical technique of Tagliacozzi consisted of cleaning the lesion in the nose, making a cut in the patient's left arm and sticking it to the area that he wanted to rebuild.The arm was in that position for a couple of weeks, while the tissues were regenerating.Do not forget that despite the academic level of the doctor, then there were no antibiotics or antiseptics, or anesthesia, so the mortality should be quite high.
According to some historians, Tagliacozzi learned this technique from Gustavo and Antonio Branca, Sicilians of the fifteenth century, who in turn accessed this knowledge through people from India who knew the manuscripts of Sushruta .
And here is another supercurious fact: the technique that is now awarded to Gaspare Tagliacozzi is based on the experience of an Indian medical surgeon , Susruta or Sushruta, who lived between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC and is the author of the Susruta-Samjita , a manuscript describing surgical interventions such as rhinoplasty, but also extractions of cataracts and anal and dental surgeries.Susruta is considered one of the main founders of Ayurvedic medicine.
As you can see, the tree of the knowledge has deep roots, to the point of taking us from 16th-century Italy to 5th-century India before Christ, and only a hundred years after Buddha.If you are interested in the article, read also Bleed to heal: another medical madness ancient.
Images: Wellcome Library, Wellcome Images, James Mutter, Alokprasad, Houghton Library at Harvard University, Massimo Rizzardini
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