{"id":5672,"date":"2024-03-26T08:02:23","date_gmt":"2024-03-26T01:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/?p=5672"},"modified":"2024-03-26T08:03:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T01:03:20","slug":"what-was-the-earliest-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/what-was-the-earliest-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"What Was The Earliest Surgery?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>TLDR: <\/strong><\/em>The earliest surgery, a successful amputation, occurred over 30,000 years ago in Borneo, challenging beliefs about the origins of medical practices and highlighting the ancient roots of compassion and medical knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>This article is a summary of a You Tube video &#8220;What Was The Earliest Surgery?&#8221; by PBS Eons<br \/>\n<iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kauDsIeIMxs?si=rZTLdRz_WPcquaL6\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Key Takeaways:<\/h3>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Ancient Surgery in Borneo<\/strong>: The oldest known surgical operation occurred over 30,000 years ago in what is now Borneo, where a child&#8217;s leg was amputated with remarkable skill.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pre-Neolithic Medicine<\/strong>: This discovery predates previous oldest known surgeries from the Neolithic period by tens of thousands of years, challenging assumptions about the origins of medical practice.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sophistication of Early Humans<\/strong>: The successful amputation in Borneo suggests ancient humans possessed advanced medical knowledge and skills long before the establishment of settled agricultural societies.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Evidence of Compassion and Ingenuity<\/strong>: Ancient peoples demonstrated traits of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and compassion, essential for practicing medicine and caring for others.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Social Aspect of Medicine<\/strong>: While self-medication is observed across various animal species, actively trying to heal others appears to be a behavior unique to Homo sapiens and possibly other hominins.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Caring for the Vulnerable<\/strong>: Evidence suggests Neanderthals and other ancient hominins cared for individuals with debilitating conditions, indicating a form of social medicine.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Chimpanzee Wound Treatment<\/strong>: Recent observations of chimpanzees treating each other&#8217;s wounds with insects might be the first recorded example of non-human animals actively treating the wounds of others.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Evolutionary Perspective on Medicine<\/strong>: The practice of medicine, including both self-medication and the treatment of others, might have deeper evolutionary roots than previously thought.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cultural Use of Insects in Medicine<\/strong>: Human societies have historically used insects and other invertebrates for medicinal purposes, a practice observed in the recent chimpanzee behavior.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Challenges in Identifying Ancient Medical Practices<\/strong>: The fossil record provides limited information on complex social behaviors like medicine, making it difficult to confirm the practice among extinct human relatives.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The earliest surgery, a successful amputation, occurred over 30,000 years ago in Borneo, challenging beliefs about the origins of medical practices and highlighting the ancient roots of compassion and medical knowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-44","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5675,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672\/revisions\/5675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wam.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}