The Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret

It was very short visit in London. This museum I found in my mistake. I was looking something interesting in the center of London. This one seem so interesting for me because i had worked in the operation theatre for 13 years and i know some tools to operations. Dark small place  in the roof of church of the old St Thomas' Hospital and lights from the window makes this place so magical. This atmospheric museum offers a unique insight into the history of medicine and surgery. The original timber framed Herb Garret was once used to dry and store herbs for patients' medicines and in 1822 an operating theatre was included. Predating anaesthetics and antiseptics, it is the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe. It was so exited time for me. 

history of museum;  http://oldoperatingtheatre.com/history/history-of-the-museum

Before the development of the chemical industry, virtually all medicines were made from natural plants. The use of herbs in St Thomas’ Hospital is first recorded in the Elizabethan period: a time of major advancements in herbal medicine, but also one where earlier superstitious beliefs prevailed. It was recorded that in 1605 that a bath for a woman in Judith ward in the Hospital was prepared with herbs and sheep’s heads.

 Storing herbs in the oak beamed roof of the church meant excess moisture could be absorbed in the wood and also offered protection against rodents. During the programme of restoring the space in the 1950s, poppy heads were discovered in the rafters. Hooks and ropes in the roof provided further evidence of its former use.

Before the advent of anaesthesia and antiseptic surgery, it was not possible to operate inside the body, with the exception of lithotomy, the extraction of bladder stones. Therefore operations were limited  to those where post-operative infection would hopefully not be fatal: amputations, wounds, fractures, hernia and easily accessible cancers of the skin, etc.

In 1823 surgery for the first artificial nose at the Hospital took place on a 34 year old man: his nose destroyed from the vast amounts of mercury taken to treat syphillis.

During the operation he was obliged to often raise himself from the table to spit out the blood which got into his mouth.

Sawdust was used in theatres to absorb blood. In the 1970s, sawdust collected beneath  the floorboards of the Old Operating Theatre was so congealed with blood, it needed a cement cutter to get through it.

The Women's Ward Operating Theatre

In 1821 operations were known to have been undertaken on Dorcas ward, part of the ward block for female patients, that was adjacent to the Old Operating Theatre. The Hospital Governors at the time reported this as unsatisfactory and half of the church roof space was converted into a purpose-built theatre to maximise light from above, and provide an ideal teaching area for the demonstration of surgical skills. Over 100 students could be attending an operation.

To enter the museum today, you have to climb 52 spiral stairs in the church’s tower. Of course patients did not have to do this as the theatre was roughly on the same level as the ward.

Anaesthetic was first used at the Hospital in January 1847 - 25 years after the first operation in the Old Operating Theatre. It was in the male theatre on a patient with a ‘disease of the hand’. The inhalation caused ‘much coughing, quickened circulation and threatened congestion of the brain and lungs that it was not thought proper to continue the operation’.

The Hospital never benefited from antiseptic (killing or removing germs before they enter a wound) surgery to prevent infection. Hands and surgical equipment were rarely washed before operations and bandages were often reused.