Hua Tuo, the Chinese God of Surgery

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 160-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Kuo Tai Fu
Keyword(s):  
Hua Tuo

Anesthetics

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Jack Li
Keyword(s):  
Nerve Fiber ◽  
Herbal Extracts ◽  
College Hospital ◽  
Impulse Conduction ◽  
Surgical Pain ◽  
Hua Tuo ◽  
Battlefield Injuries ◽  
The University ◽  
Commit Suicide ◽  
Surgical Operations

The easiest pain to bear is someone else’s. In the preanesthesia era, the prospect of surgery was so terrifying that it was not uncommon for a tough-hearted man to commit suicide rather than go through that unbearable, excruciating agony. It is hard to believe t hat t here was a time when nothing was effective to a lleviate surgical pain. The patients were simply strapped down and that was it. As a consequence, speed was the most important attribute of a surgeon in those days. A great English surgeon, Robert Liston at the University College Hospital, once boasted that he had amputated a leg in 29 seconds, along with a testicle of his patient and a finger of his assistant. The operation rooms were often strategically located at the tops of towers in the hospitals to keep fearful screams from being heard. During wartime, surgeries were even worse than battlefield injuries, because during the fight soldiers were temporarily “hypnotized” and became oblivious to pain. Before anesthesia, surgeons resorted to whatever means were available to deaden the pain oft heir patients during operations. The three most popular methods were alcohol, ice, and narcotics. Legend has it that a surgeon first conceived the idea of operating during a patient’s alcoholic coma when he noticed that a drunkard had had parts of his face chewed away by a hog but was not aware of it during a drunken stupor. Chinese surgeon Bian Què (401–310 B.C.) was reported to have operated on a patient’s brain using herbal extracts to render him unconscious more than 2,000 years ago. Hua Tuo (115–205 A.D.) made his patients take an effervescing powder (possibly cannabis) in wine that produced numbness and insensibility before surgical operations. Cold deadens pain by slowing the rate impulse conduction by nerve fiber. Some surgeons used ice to numb limbs before amputations. This method was invented by Baron Dominique Jean Larrey (1766–1842), surgeon of Napoleon’s Grande Armée.

Hua Tuo Pills - The Application in the Experiment and the Perspectives

10.5772/56430 ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Alexander A. ◽  
Vladimir G. ◽  
Elvina M. ◽  
Boris G. ◽  
Alla Yu.
Keyword(s):  
Hua Tuo

HUA Tuo: The first neurosurgeon in the world

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-72
Author(s):  
Yuqi Zhang ◽  
Yuqi Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Hua Tuo ◽  
The World

Hua Tuo, patron of surgeons, or how the surgeon lost his head!

2004 ◽  
Vol 61 (5) ◽  
pp. 497-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adina Sherer ◽  
Fred Epstein ◽  
Shlomi Constantini
Keyword(s):  
Hua Tuo

scholarly journals Hua Tuo, forefather of traditional Chinese external medicine

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-234
Author(s):  
Yinghua Huang ◽  
Yongxuan Liang
Keyword(s):  
Hua Tuo

Revisit of the Anatomy of Hua Tuo Jai Ji Points

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 125-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunbo Cai
Keyword(s):  
Hua Tuo

On Hua Tuo's Position in the History of Chinese Medicine

2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (02) ◽  
pp. 313-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fan Ka Wai
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Han Dynasty ◽  
Medical Treatments ◽  
Hua Tuo ◽  
Surgical Expertise ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Southern And Northern Dynasties ◽  
Eastern Han

Famed for his surgical expertise, Hua Tuo of the Eastern Han dynasty also excelled in a range of other medical treatments. It is rarely noted that Hua treated patients with a combination of drugs and acupuncture therapy and acquired an expert knowledge of pharmaceutics. The purpose of this article is to explore the rarely studied achievements of Hua Tuo in pharmaceutics, and further discuss the status of Hua in the history of Chinese medicine. The article points out that Hua Tuo inherited the medical achievements of past generations and strongly influenced the development of medicine during the Wei Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties.

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