Amputation saw and knife, Dutch instrument-maker, 1700-1750
Inv V02534

In the eighteenth century many seriously injured patients died as a result of wound infection and the consequent withering of tissue (gangrene). To save a patient with a complicated fracture or a large contaminated wound, a surgeon often had no option: the limb concerned had to be amputated. The wound left after amputation was at any rate treatable, which gave the patient some chance of recovery. In our eyes amputation seems a fairly drastic method of treatment, but was in many cases the only way a surgeon could keep his patient alive in those days.