In the year 2000 - when every medical student, if not patient - is well informed about open-heart surgery, organ transplantation, in vitro fertilization and video-assisted endoscopic operations, absolutely nobody can even imagine the working conditions in our Lausanne University Hospital when I started my internship in 1943. Anesthesia had barely advanced since the 1930s. Ether and nitrous oxide were given by mask under the astonishingly competent responsibility of one or two special nurses (still called sisters). Nobody had ever heard about the concept of 'intensive care'. Fractures of the femur or tibia were kept on bed-rest for 3-6 months with plaster of Paris cast or 'Kirschner traction', and gastrectomy or cholecystectomy were our major operations. The early pulmonary resections performed elsewhere at the time (Zurich, Paris) were often still done under local anesthesia allowing the patient to expectorate, and according to the crude hilar massligation technique using the Shenstone Tourniquet.
展开▼
