Auf Messers Schneide: Eine Geschichte der Chirurgie is a documentary film which was shown on French and German television (arte) in 2024.
The topic of this film is the history of medicine and health with special focus on surgery from antiquity until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writers and directors: Nina Koshofer and Christian Twente
** Narrator: Henrik van Ypsilon
** Scientific advisor: Professor Thomas Schnalke
** Language: French or German
** Subtitles: French or German
** Run time: 89 minutes
Fifteen historical and medical experts are interviewed in this film. Here are the names of the participants. Listed in alphabetical order:
** Dr Zsolt Bereczki – an anthropologist who lives in Hungary
** Dr Andrew Cameron – a surgeon – Johns Hopkins University, USA
** Professor Herwig Czech – a historian
** Professor Christiane Druml – director of Josephinum
** Professor Jean-Noel Fabiani-Salmon – a surgeon – a historian
** Dr Sally Frampton – a historian
** Rachel Kalisher – a bio-archaeologist – Ph.D.
** Wendy Moore – a freelance reporter – author of several books about medicine and health
** Professor Marion Ruisinger – a historian – director of the medical museum of Ingolstadt
** Dr Ira Rutkow – a surgeon – author of several books about medicine and health
** Levente Samu – an archaeologist who lives in Hungary
** Professor Thomas Schnalke – a historian – director of the medical history museum at Charité, Berlin
** Dr Susan Vassallo – an anesthesiologist who lives in Boston
** Eduard Winter – director of a medical collection in Vienna: Narrenturm
** Professor Fabio Zampieri – a historian – University of Padua, Italy
As stated above, the topic of this film is the history of medicine and health with special focus on surgery from antiquity to the beginning of the twentieth century.
In this film, the history of medicine and health is told by focusing on 20 persons who played an important role in the field of surgery and related disciplines
Here are the names of the pioneers in the field. Listed in the order of presentation.
Some of them are only mentioned briefly, while others are presented with many details.
Most of them are men, as you can see, but a few of them are women.
** Galen (Galenos of Pergamon) (129-216)
** Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)
** Ambroise Paré (1510-1590)
** William Harvey (1578-1657)
** Charles-François Felix de Tassy (1635-1703)
** John Hunter (1728-1793)
** Robert Liston (1794-1847)
** William T. G. Morton (1819-1868)
** Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
** Carl von Rokitansky (1804-1878)
** Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865)
** Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
** Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)
** Elisabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917)
(the mother of Louisa)
** Louisa Garrett Anderson (1873-1943)
(the daughter of Elisabeth)
** Flora Murray 1869-1923)
** Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902)
** Theodor Billroth (1829-1894)
** William Halstead (1852-1922)
** Daniel Hale Williams (1856-1931)
Obviously, other persons might be added, but with 20 persons the list is already quite long. If the limit is 20 names, I think the persons on the list are well-chosen.
As far as I know, the information presented about each person seems to be fair and accurate.
But there is a flaw in the presentation of the Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis who worked at a hospital in Vienna.
Semmelweis told his fellow doctors to wash their hands carefully before starting a new procedure: helping a pregnant woman or performing an autopsy on a dead body.
Why did he do this?
Semmelweis had been away from the hospital and Vienna for a few days. When he returned, he learned that his colleague and friend Jacob Kolletschka had died of an infection in one of his fingers.
Having studied his body, Semmelweis formed a hypothesis to explain what had happened.
Some small organisms could be transferred from one person to another when a doctor moved from one patient to the next without washing his hands before attending to the next patient.
These small organisms could be dangerous, and sometimes even deadly. Apparently, they were transferred from a dead body to the doctor’s hand. When the doctor accidentally cut his finger, the deadly organisms entered his body and killed him.
To prevent this from happening, Semmelweis suggested that a doctor should always wash his hands before beginning a new procedure.
In the film, this story is told. It is true. But the film does not explain how Semmelweis went on to prove his hypothesis.
The hospital had two units for pregnant women. In unit 1, the staff were male doctors. In unit 2, the staff were female midwives.
When the Hungarian doctor compared the mortality rates of the two units, he could see that the rate was relatively low in unit 2 (where the midwives worked), and relatively high in unit 1 (where the doctors worked).
He asked himself: what is the reason for the different rates of mortality? What do the doctors do that the midwives do not do?
He found the answer: the doctors have two duties: one duty is to perform autopsies. Another duty is to assist pregnant women who come to give birth.
The midwives have only one duty: to assist pregnant women who come to give birth. The midwives have nothing to do with autopsies.
Semmelweis assumed a dead body contains some small organisms which can be dangerous, even deadly. When a doctor performs an autopsy, some of these organisms would be on his hands.
When the doctor went to unit one to assist a pregnant woman, he had to touch this patient and when he did this, the dangerous organisms could be transferred from his hands to the patient.
The doctor went straight from the autopsy room to unit 1. He did not wash his hands before entering unit 1 where he assisted pregnant women.
Semmelweis told his fellow doctors about his hypothesis, and he asked them to wash their hands every time before attending to a new patient.
His colleagues objected. They were furious. They did not believe him. They asked:
“How can you accuse us of having dirty hands?”
There was nothing to see on their hands! What are the small organisms?
They could not see them. They could not believe his claim about something which was invisible.
In spite of their objections, the experiment went ahead. The doctors washed their hands, and Semmelweis recorded the mortality rates day by day.
After a while, the result was obvious: the mortality rate in unit 2 was the same as before, while the mortality rate in unit dropped to the same low level as in unit 2.
When Semmelweis presented his hypothesis to his fellow doctors, they refused to believe him.
When Semmelweis was able to prove that his hypothesis was correct, they still refused to believe him.
At that time, there were no microscopes which could be used to show the existence of small organisms which were dangerous, sometimes even deadly.
The Hungarian doctor was regarded as a madman by many doctors while he was still alive.
After his death, his hypothesis was confirmed by other scientists, first and foremost by the French scientist Louis Pasteur who proved that microbes are everywhere and that some of them are dangerous, in some cases deadly.
This film does not tell us how Semmelweis proved his hypothesis. The film does not tell us how his hypothesis was met with resistance from colleagues and many other doctors who should have known better.
Nowadays, Semmelweis is regarded as a pioneer and a great scientist, who improved our knowledge about health and disease. But this fact is not mentioned in the film.
This omission is a flaw. But I have decided to regard it as a minor flaw, which will not influence my rating of the film.
What do reviewers say about this film?
This question is not easy to answer.
It is listed on IMDb, but there is no rating.
There are no user reviews.
The topic is important. The story deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done very well – apart from the minor flaw in the presentation of Igzaz Semmelweis.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
If you are interested in the history of the world – in particular the history of medicine and health – this film is definitely something for you.
It is highly recommended.
PS # 1. Christian Twente is the director of several television films, including the following:
** Das Luther Tribunal: Zehn Tage im April
(2017)
** Karl Marx: Der deutsche Prophet
(2018)
** Kaiserspiel: Bismarcks Reichsgründing in Versailles (2021)
PS # 2. Nina Koshofer is the director of several television films, including the following:
Friedrich Engels (2020)
REFERENCES
# 1. General works
The Cambridge Illustrated History of Surgery
By Harold Ellis
(2009)
Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations
By Arnold van de Laar
(2018)
Belly-Rippers, Surgical Innovation and the Ovariotomy Controversy
By Sally Frampton
(2018)
Empire of the Scalpel:
The History of Surgery
By Ira Rutkow
(2023)
# 2. Biographical works
Daniel Hale Williams:
Negro Surgeon
By Helen Buckler
(1968)
Childbed Fever:
A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis
By K. Codell Carter and Barbara Carter
(1994 = hardcover)
(2005 = paperback)
The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignaz Semmelweis
By Sherwin B. Nuland
(2003 = hardcover)
(2004 = paperback)
The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery
By Wendy Moore
(2005)
Robert Liston:
Surgery’s Hero
By Matthew Kaufman
(2009)
Prince of Medicine:
Galen in the Roman Empire
By Susan P. Mattern
(2013)
Andreas Vesalius:
The Making, the Madman, and the Myth
By Stephen N. Joffe
(2014)
The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine
By Janice P. Nimura
(2021 = hardcover)
(2022 = paperback)
Life and Times of Ambroise Paré, 1510-1590
By Francis R. Packard
(2022)
*****
Auf Messers Schneide:
Eine Geschichte der Chirurgie
(2024)
*****
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