Mark Pilkington on the history of the Old Operating Theatre
An operating theatre for women, without antiseptics or anaesthesia
The Old Operating Theatre was built as an operating theatre for
women in 1822 as part of St Thomas' Hospital. As an operating
theatre it had a stepped viewing arrangement above it, from which
the students could watch the procedures taking place on the
operating table.
The theatre was a working site from 1822 to 1862, before the
development of either antiseptics or anaesthesia. Patients were
dosed with alcohol and given a wooden pole to bite on to cope with
the pain of surgical procedures like amputation.
This video is from Medical London, a book and
website about 2000 years of health and sickness in the capital
city, featuring seven self-guided walks. The Old Operating Theatre
is a point of interest on the first walk, 'Life and Death by Water:
A walk along the Medieval Thames'.