
[Image: A hand drawn illustration from a book of three African doctors assisting a pregnant person in labor, who is laying on a bed. One doctor holds the person’s stomach, the other their feet, and the third a knife to begin a c-section. They are in a square room of some kind.]
AN EXAMPLE OF AFRICAN MEDICAL SCIENCE. ILLUSTRATION OF AFRICAN DOCTORS IN 19TH CENTURY (1879) KAHARA,UGANDA PERFORMING A CAESARIAN SECTION. THIS OPERATION WAS UNKNOWN IN EUROPE AT THE TIME.
Africans were performing many advanced medical procedures long before they had been conceived in Europe this is just one of many examples.
The British traveler R.W. Felkin who reported this noted that the healer used banana wine to semi-intoxicate the woman and to cleanse his hands and her abdomen prior to surgery. He used a midline incision and applied cautery to minimize hemorrhaging. He massaged the uterus to make it contract but did not suture it; the abdominal wound was pinned with iron needles and dressed with a paste prepared from roots. The patient recovered well, and Felkin concluded that this technique was well-developed and had clearly been employed for a long time. Similar reports come from Rwanda, where botanical preparations were also used to anesthetize the patient and promote wound healing.
Referece: “Notes on Labour in Central Africa” published in the Edinburgh Medical Journal, volume 20, April 1884, pages 922-930.
For folks who think c-sections are an invention made by western medicine.
Amazing
Wow! History is everything.
While I’m not qualified to speak to whether caesarian sections...or America at the time,...
So much history to learn. I was terrible at the BS history they tried to teach me in school, at least the real stuff...
This at a time when European proponents of germ theory were still struggling to get surgeons to wash their hands. -_-