Who Was the Person to Invent the Surgical Scalpel?

The name of first person who invented the surgical scalpel has not been recorded. The inventor of the scalpel probably lived during the Stone Age. The oldest documented surgeries date back to ancient times when circumcision and trepanation (opening in the skull to let spirits escape) were done by scalpels that were stone knives and saws made of flint or obsidian. Some older evidence from archaeological findings reveals that Stone Age humans handled knife-like tools to remove injured fingers or to perforate skulls in tribal rituals. The surgical scalpel evolved through the millenniums and its use adapted to cultural practices.

First Recorded Scalpels - 3000 BC to 1700 BC

• Cutting the human body was guided by the laws of each country. In ancient times, this practice was forbidden in Japan and China but authorized in Persia where copper knifes were the official surgery tool. Babylon authorized bronze lancets about 1700 BC. Surgery was a rare event as severe consequences awaited the surgeon if the outcome of the surgery was detrimental to the patient. The Egyptians developed a family of surgical scalpels to aid the mummification process around 2500 BC.

Explosion of Scalpels Under the Hindus Influence

• The Sushruta Samhit, a large Sanskrit medical surgery encyclopedia from the third or fourth century A.D., describes more than one hundred surgical tools with designs attributed to the surgeon Sushrata. These steel devices feature several scalpels to support a large array of surgical interventions ranging from plastic surgery to removing bladder stones. In another part of the world, steel scalpels were also the surgical tool of choice for the Romans and Greeks who practiced surgery to external body parts. Pompeii's remains include a steel blade scalpel.

Rebirth of the Scalpel Under the Renaissance

• During the Middle Age, the art of medicine declined and amputations became the extent of acceptable surgical interventions. Ambroise Paré revived the practice of medical surgery in the late 1500s. He developed surgical procedures and designed new surgical tools, including a series of scalpels to facilitate his operations.

Influence of Anesthesia and Sterilization

• The mid-1800s introduced anesthesia that supported longer surgeries and deeper exploration of the body. With the practice of sterilizing scalpels under the influence of Louis Pasteur and the use of antiseptics, outcomes of surgeries started to improve.

Technology and Scalpels

• The introduction of X-Rays in 1895, followed by microscopes, opened the door to more accurate surgeries. New scalpels surfaced on the market to support high precision cuts and to facilitate interventions in difficult to reach body places. Scalpels with an integrated heat source were introduced to cauterize the edges of a tissue wound as the scalpel creates the opening.

Modern Scalpel

• In the surgery rooms of the twenty-first century, you will see both a scalpel similar to the design of ancient civilizations and a laser-based scalpel that beams focused optical light onto the skin to cut tissues. Imaging and robotic technologies support the insertion and maneuver of scalpels by an operator located thousands of miles away as demonstrated by the Da Vinci surgical robot.