While a small camera captures the autofluorescence, the images are cycled through a computer. It also saw the use of cocaine as a local anaesthetic, which made eye surgeons use the instruments with great care. This disease affects the pressure in the eye and can cause blindness. The first operative treatment for glaucoma was developed during this time. The nineteenth century saw tremendous advancements in eye surgery. The first eye surgeons used an ivory-handled scalpel called John Weiss in 1870. It is the first device of its kind to cut an incision in the cornea. The femtosecond laser is another type of surgical tool that is being developed.
The excimer laser reshapes the cornea with light pulses a billion times faster than a camera flash. Unlike other surgical instruments, eye surgeons use a microkeratome to cut the initial flap in the cornea.
These instruments are made of ivory and are typically used in eye surgeries. Now, you can easily find a great variety of these instruments in the market. Cocaine was also introduced as a local anaesthetic during surgery. First, the operative treatment for glaucoma (an abnormally high pressure in the eye) was introduced. In this time, ophthalmologists made huge advances in the field of eye surgery. The history of eye scalpels dates back to the 1860s. In Neolithic times trepanation - or drilling a hole into the skull - was thought to be a cure for everything from epilepsy to migraines.Products and services from the categories Ophthalmic eye knives and ophthalmic eye scalpels in medical technology or other healthcare-related industries. It could even have been a form of emergency surgery for battle wounds.īut while there is still conjecture about the real reasons behind the mysterious procedure, what is known is that the implement often used to carry out the primitive surgery was made from one of the sharpest substances found in nature - obsidian. Obsidian - a type of volcanic glass - can produce cutting edges many times finer than even the best steel scalpels.Īt 30 angstroms - a unit of measurement equal to one hundred millionth of a centimeter - an obsidian scalpel can rival diamond in the fineness of its edge.
When you consider that most household razor blades are 300-600 angstroms, obsidian can still cut it with the sharpest materials nano-technology can produce.Įven today, a small number of surgeons are using an ancient technology to carry out fine incisions that they say heal with minimal scarring.ĭr. Lee Green, professor and chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta, says he routinely uses obsidian blades. "It makes for the best cosmetic outcome." "The biggest advantage with obsidian is that it is the sharpest edge there is, it causes very little trauma to tissue, it heals faster and more importantly it heals with less scarring," he said. He explained that steel scalpels at a microscopic level have a rough cutting edge that tears into tissue, a function of the crystals that make up the metal. Obsidian, meanwhile, cleaves into a fine and continuous edge when properly cut.ĭr.
Green said he once helped documentary makers produce a program on surgical technology in ancient Egyptian, setting up a blind test on the cutting power of obsidian.
Using cultured-skin burn dressing, a substance composed of skin cells, he made an incision with a modern scalpel and a parallel incision with an obsidian scalpel. The host of the program was then invited to look at the cuts under a video microscope and tell the difference. "Under the microscope you could see the obsidian scalpel had divided individual cells in half, and next to it the steel scalpel incision looked like it had been made by a chainsaw." "It wasn't hard to tell the difference at all - as soon as he turned around everyone in the studio was like 'Ohhh'," Dr. Modern obsidian scalpels look nothing like the decorative flint-knapped knives of Neolithic man, often resembling their modern counterparts in everything except for the blade edge, but Dr. Green said they are a very different animal.