Pathophysiological concepts in the Age of Enlightenment

Abstract

In many ways the eighteenth century was also an Age of Enlightenment for surgery. Towards the end of the century, the steady improvements being made in clinical diagnosis as well as in operative techniques based on accurate anatomical knowledge, together with the development of sophisticated tools, had raised the practice of surgery to the highest conceivable level which could be reached without asepsis and anaesthesia. The traditional social differences between surgeons and physicians dwindled as more and more surgeons took a medical degree and the teaching of surgery gradually assumed a more scientific and clinical character. The latter applied in particular to France and the United Kingdom.