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[eepkeep]

This suggestion gave me an idea: Why not implement dwarven anesthesia? Right now, liberal application of a huge hammer, with as much force as possible a precise strike with a medical grade blunt instrument to the cranium sounds like a good idea. That would deal with the ethical issues of vivisections on prisoners, and also minimize pain during actual surgery.
Otherwise, cadavers would work almost as well.

[blizzerd]

This suggestion gave me an idea: Why not implement dwarven anesthesia? Right now, liberal application of a huge hammer, with as much force as possible a precise strike with a medical grade blunt instrument to the cranium sounds like a good idea. That would deal with the ethical issues of vivisections on prisoners, and also minimize pain during actual surgery.
Otherwise, cadavers would work almost as well.

sorry to burst your bubble, but in medieval times they did this sometimes for people of high standards, but it was well known it was more efficient and positive to just strap someone down to a table/chair so he couldn't move and operate on him while he or she is awake, hoping they go into shock before actual really painful stuff goes on then to beat them KO and risk killing them

EVEN taking into account that people can get really fucked up in the head from that amount of pain and shock for life

[Granite26]

Yeah, but it's sooooooo dwarfy

[eepkeep]

sorry to burst your bubble, but in medieval times they did this sometimes for people of high standards, but it was well known it was more efficient and positive to just strap someone down to a table/chair so he couldn't move and operate on him while he or she is awake, hoping they go into shock before actual really painful stuff goes on then to beat them KO and risk killing them

EVEN taking into account that people can get really fucked up in the head from that amount of pain and shock for life

That... doesn't make any sense. If you're hoping for someone to go into shock then it's either from pain or life-risking blood loss, which doesn't make it any better than a smack on the head. Besides, medieval surgery was a death sentence in and of itself, so I doubt it would have made a difference. I was going for the dwarfiness of the method and not any actual efficacy.

Jokes aside, implementing anesthetics would finally give us a use for extracts outside of food products. On the topic at hand, it would also allow experienced surgeons to let students take a 'cut and shut' look at dwarven anatomy. Of course, that's being optimistic and assuming tourniquets, clamps and the word 'careful' exist in the world of dwarven surgery.

[blizzerd]

the "hoping to go into shock part was directed at the "victim", since when you go into shock your mind locks out all senses and the victim can go trough the pain much easier

hitting someone KO enough that they do not wake trough surgery is not a reliable nor efficient anaesthetic and does more damage then good, to a point that its just better to leave the patient awake and for the patients sake hope they go into shock to not deal with the entire operation consciously that's what i was trying to say

[NW_Kohaku]

Letting your surgeons experiment on dead citizens would be a saner and more realistic alternative. The price of knowledge could be that it really upsets the subject's friends and family ; especially those who have  "traditionalist" personality traits.

Perhaps it could even be subject to mayoral bans, and trainee surgeons could find themselves thrown into ye olde dungeon for graverobbing.

I wonder if practicing upon corpses really does fit into the technology cutoff, however.  We already have anachronistically good medicine for Europe during the Middle Ages.

Philosophically, doctors in the middle ages were uninterested in the internal workings of the human body, as horrendously backwards as that sounds, thanks to Catholic dogma variations of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle that set science and philosophy back a thousand years in general, and Galen for medicine in particular. (Even though Galen himself dissected corpses.) The reason why they did things like leechings and bleedings of humors and such was that doctors were convinced that all physical maladies could be diagnosed by reading the horoscopes of the patient to find what treatment they needed to perform.  Because of this, all doctors were astrologers and mystics, and Nostradamus's day job was that of an apothecary and worked with physicians.

Until the very end of the 14th century, it was very rare for Europeans to even dare question the ancient Greek texts on medicine or examine corpses.   

In the 18-19 centuries, there was a cottage industry of graverobbing corpses to supply doctors with their training illicitly, and some graverobbers wouldn't even bother to wait for a grave to fill up, and would simply go murdering anyone they could get away with to have more bodies to sell the "men of healing".  Supposedly, a mass murderer who had been selling his corpses to doctors was eventually caught when he sold a doctor the body of a friend he had actually met and talked to that same day.

Oh, and I think "anasthesia" for such treatments was more along the lines of a bottle of whiskey... which actually would probably act as an anti-coagulant, and make you more likely to bleed to death, so just suck it up you big whiner.

[Dynastia]

I'll agree that corpse-dissecting doesn't fit with the high medieval timeline for Europeans, but it does fit with the type of surgery Dwarves are already doing, and it's probably not too far from what Muslim doctors had accomplished in the middle ages (but I'm not sure).

I don't think physical blows to the head were ever used as anaesthesia outside of cartoons and slapstick comedies. Medieval folk would go without anesthetic, or use a drug of some sort ; opium and hashish weren't likely to be on the menu for west europeans, but copious amounts of alcohol could serve. And anaesthesia doesn't necessarily have to be a narcotic or hypnotic. Anything that gets you absolutely off your face would work... ergot mould, magic mushrooms, datura... it'd be awfully unpleasant, but it'd probably be better than nothing.

Since all the flora in-game is fictional, it doesn't really matter what they used back then ; since if anaesthesia is implemented we can bet it'll either be alcohol or a new fictional plant with narcotic/hallucinogenic properties.

[Bohandas]

It also may be ethic thing: IMPOSSIBLE to use prisoners for this, but animals are OK.

Implementing the idea and adding an ethic setting to control it sounds good to me.

[PTTG??]

Go Go Gadget Vivisection

That's better.

[Nikov]

Begging to differ on that 'useless stupid middle ages people'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTf2EzTd1TE&list=SL

Real scholarly looking, I know.

[Lungfish]

Experimental surgery! YES! Mutilating corpses for science! I love the idea of it causing a sad thought on close friends and family.
Healing prisoners so they can dodge more of my marksdwarves bolts, yes - medical experimentation on prisoners, mm, I prefer not. Maybe it could depend on the ethics tag of the dwarven society, religion, philosophy, or the individual doctor.

Doctoring needs a little revamping anyway. Surgical tools are necessary, probably made at a crafting workshop. We should have more spontaneous "injuries" like tooth aches, difficult pregnancies, tumors, and "bad blood". And certain plants to be milled or processed at an alchemist to make medicines and anesthetics. Would be nice if an anesthesiologist/apothecary could sedate a patient instead of constantly getting "Surgeon canceled surgery: patient not resting" because the stubborn dwarf insists on attending a party.

[IT 000]

Humans did attempt to study human anatomy by cutting open pigs and such. However these diagrams that they drew are inaccurate.

http://www.craphound.com/images/vintageanatomy.jpg

Can you imagine opening up a human with a diagram like that?

In the Renaissance era, practicing on humans, even corpses, was taboo, so why not reflect this in DF? Instead of having a medical dwarf churn out another boat. They could go into a different mood (Not sure what it would be called) they would grab a sentient corpse, or kill a dwarf depending on their happiness, they would bring it to a butchers shop, and proceed to dissect it. Once done the dwarf will not create any new item, rather be rewarded with legendary diagnostician, and surgeon.

[Kogut]

Why legendary in one steep?

[Granite26]

Humans did attempt to study human anatomy by cutting open pigs and such. However these diagrams that they drew are inaccurate.

http://www.craphound.com/images/vintageanatomy.jpg

Can you imagine opening up a human with a diagram like that?

In the Renaissance era, practicing on humans, even corpses, was taboo, so why not reflect this in DF? Instead of having a medical dwarf churn out another boat. They could go into a different mood (Not sure what it would be called) they would grab a sentient corpse, or kill a dwarf depending on their happiness, they would bring it to a butchers shop, and proceed to dissect it. Once done the dwarf will not create any new item, rather be rewarded with legendary diagnostician, and surgeon.

There's a lot of awesome in this....   Fell moods are already in, so why not let it happen when a dwarf gets sick of all the deaths on the operating table? 

[Keita]

Have an animal stockpile overrun by caged Elven merchants and goblin invaders? Have a bone setter who cant tell the difference between a broken leg and a bruised brain?   Two sad sad problems with one happy solution,  a job that can be dedicated to a caged, non-pet animal/prisoner, "Perform experimental surgery"  in which case your haulers would drag it down to an empty traction bench and strap it down,  and your Medical team would proceed to practice their craft repeatedly on the volunteer untill it is either re assigned to a cage or stops breathing.  The medical team gets rapid skill ups from the educational experiment, and you free up a cage to catch something else.

Dear god, that is some what sadistic.
Ok, I will support, as long as dwarfs will also attempt to fix up prisoners who have injured parts. Therefor, when artificial limbs get implemented, we can butcher a goblin, and build him again stronger, then release him in an arena with a forgotten beast.

This brings area fights to a whole new level.

I can see a scarred reining champion goblin armed with another artifical limb as a weapon...