The Bloody Life of England's Fastest Surgeon • Puppet History

foreign [Music] welcome one and all to puppet history today we're taking an Ever winding look at yet another chapter in the heavy heavy book we call history well our guests ruthlessly compete for the coveted title of History master I am your beloved host the professor thank you Ryan bergara looking to maintain a four-week winning streak are you ready still alive yes you are now foreign [Music] our special guest are you ready oh I'm very ready it is a real treat to be here thank you so much for having me it's a pleasure to have you well then let's crack in [Music] now to begin has either of you ever had any surgeries maybe an appendix out or even wisdom teeth well I personally am very blessed to have only had my wisdom at a root canal yeah I hadn't gone to the dentist for like nine years and so by the time I went there they said oh yeah these bad boys need to be taken out and you also need a root canal so I got a double Wham I mean among other things yeah nine years is a long time it was a long time after how many wisdom teeth did you have at that point I had four that had to be Four Strong they were impacting the teeth in front of them too oh yeah makes sense they pushed them forward I think my dad's a dentist so oh I kind of have like a little bit of a knowledge in this in this brag much I said brag much oh no I was just waiting for you to correct yourself because you were being rude anybody ever cut you Ryan oh my god let's ask the box maybe there's some answers in there don't touch the box if you touch the box I'll [ __ ] kill you okay all right whoa a little aggressive there everything's fine are you guys afraid of surgery absolutely yeah I think so yeah it seems scary going under the knife not just that but I'm scared of the you know the old Hayden Christensen movie you know he's awake I think it's called awake oh yeah yeah when the anesthetic doesn't work well if the idea of surgery today is scary imagine what it was like only a few hundred years ago actually don't imagine listen today we're talking about Victorian medicine's greatest surgeon DrRobert Liston okay this seems like a guy up to no good already maybe who are we talking about like a Mad Doctor I don't know have you heard of him no I haven't heard him never heard of him you gotta imagine surgery in the Victorian era probably not great though did they have an Aesthetics back then I think it was just bite down on this belt yeah yeah pretty much let's take the arm now well let's get into it no one likes to be sick but in the 1800s getting sick was barely better than getting dead and if you needed an operation well your choice really came down to how much pure suffering you could handle before the Advent of anesthesia not to mention Journal Theory a doctor's as it was basically your last-ditch effort to survive in 1847 according to the New York Times quote Physicians were only a few decades from medical theories inherited from the ancient Greeks not a fun time yeah I assume that like if you got stabbed or something was kind of like a mortal wound they would just let you bleed out and die and it's like ah he's gone I imagine their best effort was like cauterizing stuff with a hot sword or something at all yeah oh it's 1835 and you've both slipped on banana peels I don't know how you've done it bananas won't really be around the U. S for another few decades but you've both got compound fractures what you gonna do a pray B see a doctor were you expecting a third option I'm sorry it's 1835 be glad you have two choices now am I am I answering this like I mean in that time right in that time in that time yeah beef boys doing hard on this one beef stew yeah yeah the classic beef stew the classic okay uh Ryan what you got I guess I'm gonna go with DrB uh I don't know it feels weird because it does feel kind of like going to a doctor would only make my situation worse anyways yeah I don't think praying would do much okay and Arya I went the opposite I said a pray oh you know the painting ain't gonna do much either but the doctor situation that's gonna be unnecessary pain sure you know I may as well spare myself the pain I think you're gonna still be in a lot of pain if your Bone's sticking out of your skin though yes but maybe God will help yes I don't know it's kind of hard to kneel and pray when your your shin bones popping out of your skin I do agree that either way you're kind of kind of [ __ ] yeah well God gave you the compound fracture too that's true so why would he fix it it was a test a test yeah it's always everything's a test the big purple guy tests us a lot um well uh I'm going to give a point to Ryan for that one yes Arya uh while prayer may have helped your soul it certainly didn't help your body your leg had no chance of healing and you would have gotten gangrene which would have led to a little bit of wood poisoning which would have killed you I always thought it was funny that gangrene is also the nickname for the New York Jets which is appropriate because they suck balls and they always have oh God I don't even like when you pretend to like exports references dunking on the Jets take that Jets now on the other hand with the doctor I'm afraid your outlook has improved only slightly the doctor is going to perform an anesthesia free amputation you're to drink a pint of whiskey at which point you'll be pinned down by orderlies while a surgeon uses a long curved knife to cut the skin all the way around your leg then through the muscle a few inches up at that point the knife will be exchanged for a saw so that while an assistant pulls your leg muscles back the surgeon can saw through the bone the critical arteries and veins will be literally tied off so you don't bleed to death the muscle and skin will be stitched up and Bob's your uncle you're done so you made it well hope you're happy with your choice the doctor yeah that sounds [ __ ] awful resetting the bone was not an option they just immediately go to cutting it off because that's normally what you would do with a compound fraction yeah I don't think they were very good at it so I think they would just just lob it off Victorian type don't seem that fun you know yeah Jack the Ripper running around you have this going on it's like what do they have you guys ever gotten even stitches or anything oh up here and my little scar up here was because she has a little baby I fell off the high chair you fell off the high chair reaching for a cake big cake boy ain't that like Arya well Arya just wanted his little cake I don't think I've ever had stitches now to think about it it was crazy that they just Stitch you up they just sew your skin together I guess when you put it that way I mean you got eaten by a T-Rex that's much worse than chewed me up and spit me out did it hurt oh yeah it must have nice well if you are lucky enough to have a skilled surgeon the whole ordeal might take less than a minute though there is no shortage of horror stories of the process taking longer like the surgeon whose saw got stuck in the bone and refused to budge and even the lucky patients who didn't suffer any complications were barely able to describe the experience as George Wilson who had his ankle disarticulated in 1843 described four years after the event quote the horror of great darkness and the sense of desertion by God and man bordering close on despair which swept through my mind and overwhelmed my heart I can never forget however gladly I would do so I like my ankles fully articulated I don't want them disarticulated it's when their skin separates from The Joint I don't like skinning I don't like any of it I mean I don't like any of it but in particular I've never really enjoyed when people talk about skinning or scalping or any of that stuff I once saw why are you laughing what's wrong with you I think Arya is a serial killer it'll be kind of funny [Laughter] speaking of skinny I I once saw a very funny image which I'll show you later Professor if you want I can show you in a moment of of the green m m skinny herself and she's chocolate oh this is this is because people were lusting after her right yes yeah yes in this scenario was the green skin kind of like clothes or were there yes it was like clothes I forgot about her skin that's her skin oh it's really gross Arya loves it I'm gonna look at this he's gonna show it to me on his phone and I'm gonna see that it's his wallpaper I I have a bunch of images of her while the patient clearly had the short end of the scalpel and operation wasn't exactly a picnic for the surgeon either slicing open a rising wretch blood shooting from their severed limbs as they screamed out for death look you need to be prepared for such things unfortunately training young doctors was extremely difficult in Victorian England hey why a a lack of practice cadavers B interference from the church RC 19th century heebie-jeebies about blood smart boys smart smart little guys locked in I'm gonna go with B problems with the church time and time again it seems like religion hates science so I'm gonna just kind of ride that train yes I'm going with b as well I concur you know we they always like to meddle in the Affairs that's a sort of sneakers on the court uh our second best bit just don't acknowledge it and maybe he'll shut up the second best bit hey points to neither of you whoa yeah that's right oh sorry no need to be nasty about it yes in the early 1800s getting your hands on a dead body was tough work people were dying left and right how could they not that's like the buffet they weren't preserving them very well uh oh that makes more sense there's there was a lot going on there was also laws against dissection that meant that in 1823 for instance instructors in Great Britain had to train almost 2 000 students with fewer than 100 legally obtained bodies If I Was a Serial Killer living back in the day I would just become a doctor I mean that's smart honestly no one would get after you for malpractice like nowadays not that I've ever had this fantasy and played it out but I'm just saying if I was going to do it that's how I would do it now what if that was what Jack the Ripper was doing he was just obsessed with killing doing it on the clock and working after hours that guy was working after hours like Drke Drke's not a murderer alleged as far as we know Professor you've already gotten tagged up once for a defamation lawsuit I don't think he won another one oh right right you're right Drke is not a murderer all right moving along winning a clock clip scared of snakes Etc oh hey there Dorothy Ruth hello Professor you know I know you've got a lesson to get to but I simply had to gallop over here to thank Helix sleep for sponsoring this video Professor did you know that the average horse only sleeps about 2. 9 hours a day what that's crazy right it's like what are we doing anyway as I've mentioned I've actually hit the dating scene after the Mucky death of my husband Stanley Melvin so I've actually been spending a lot more time in bed lately thankfully Helix sleep makes premium mattresses and bedding that are customized to fit your needs and they're conveniently shipped right to your door oh nice and actually my old mattress really stinks and I could use an upgrade here's my friend Meredith helping 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com water for up to two hundred dollars off your Helix Sleep mattress plus two free pillows wow that's incredible hey thanks Dorothy Ruth of course okay I'm running late for a date with a Clydesdale named Elmer Walter Williams we might eat some carrots and if it collapses Hooves right maybe I'll show him my Helix see you later yeah clap clap goodbye all right where were we enterprising resurrectionists AKA Body Snatchers stepped up to fill the demand the practice became somewhat routine with one resurrectionist Ben Crouch admitting he had one span of four nights where he secured 23 bodies over the 1811 School term Crouch claimed his team was responsible for delivering 406 bodies each averaging a payment of seven pounds in today's money it meant that after expenses like bribes a body snatcher could conservatively net forty thousand dollars a year with little more than a shovel and a strong stomach I mean in a way it's positive because they're helping Advance Medical knowledge sure they weren't getting bodies anywhere else until the father of a deceased son goes back to the Grave the next day to pay additional respects and it's just a hole it's just a little IOU note yes just like BRB needed body are you guys going to donate your bodies to uh science when you're dead yeah sure I don't give a [ __ ] what happens if your body after we go although I watched a video recently by Johnny Harris about the illegal organ and body trade sometimes if you donate your body to the wrong or you leave it to the wrong organization like it can be sold out to be shown in like Ripley's kind of like situations like that there was like a convention in Portland where people were like gawking at a dead body what yeah interesting and no and they were doing they were performing surgeries on it what I know wild when I die uh can you just toss me into one of those claw machines I'd rather toss you into a T-Rex mouth you already did that you piece of [ __ ] well his grandma business as it sounds without the Body Snatchers it really would have been almost impossible to give budding doctors any hands-on experience never mind how remedial that experience was in the first place since new doctors had only Bare Bones training it meant that and this remains true today the most important factor when going under the knife was who your surgeon was and in the first half of the 1800s there was no better surgeon than Robert Liston why because his success rate was 25 or something well let's find out Robert Liston was born on October 28 1794 in the mans of ecclesmachen linduthkashire his father Henry Liston was a minister and gave Robert most of his early schooling at age 16 Robert became an assistant to a DrJohn Barkley a professor of anatomy and physiology and began training as a doctor in both Edinburgh and London joining the Royal College of Surgeons of England at age 24. he soon gained a reputation as a skillful surgeon taking on patience that the Royal infirmary of Edinburgh deemed inoperable patients would camp out in his offices for days in the hopes of getting a consultation and Liston tried to see every one of them one time I camped out 12 hours to see The Dark Knight at midnight worth it so I imagine this guy was also worth it you ever wait out camp out for anything are you no I've never camped out for anything not even to camp in the woods no I'm not a big camping boy what's the longest line you've ever waited in Disneyland lines sure yeah you got to get that fast pass bro that's true hey what helped make Liston such a good surgeon a hand so steady they never once slipped b a mind is so sharp he had every published text on medicine memorized or see he was big in what sense yeah like is he big in terms of stature or like big guy guys a an absolute [ __ ] unit okay Ryan what do you got I went with the c just just an absolute [ __ ] unit of me I just think it's really funny that people back and then would think oh he's a great doctor because he's so large Aria what do you got I got a big boy too how about a big boy with an i oh sound the alarms we got a couple seats that's good okay we're gonna find out the video the Magical Theater I'll be right back bye puppet excuse me is this the office of Robert Liston my leg is shattered and if it isn't removed I'm as good as dead oh this is Robert listings office but you'll have to wait in line I've been here for a day now up and he'd chop off me messed up foot I hear the doctors the smartest man to ever live hmm not sure about that well also hear his hands are so true that he's never made a horrible mistake like cutting off someone's balls on accident well I've heard the opposite well then what is it that makes DrListon so great whoa oh absolute [ __ ] unit holy [ __ ] Robert Liston is huge no wonder everybody wants him to operate on them well I wonder do you think that listen was was he uh was he juicing up I don't think so he's natural I think that guy was just slaying a bunch of pigs and eating the [ __ ] out of them every day points to both of you you're a big guy big big guy yeah when the job description is physically restraining your patient and then putting your back into sawing through their bones the bigger the doctor the better and Robert Liston was a whopping six foot two it was Victorian England remember everything was a little bit smaller oh so like by today's standard it was like a seven foot boy it's like three inches shorter than shaneman day if Shane was a doctor back in the day they would have stood in line for him maybe well Robert Liston wasn't only tall he was also relatively clean which was notable for a time when one of the main explanations given for illness wasn't bacteria but instead you must have pissed God off listen was insistent that limbs be shaved before operating that surgical sponges be washed before surgery and that he washed his own hands before sticking them inside of a person revolutionary stuff though he did have this silly habit of uh holding a bloody knife in his mouth when his hands were otherwise occupied listen we've all gone our own gross little habits yeah three for four yeah you know sort of ahead of the curve without even knowing it that's crazy because yeah because you just said germ Theory had just come was it just breaking onto the scene by the time this guy was no we didn't even have it yet oh wow so he really was ahead of the curve yeah now Liston also stood out due to his concerns for the mental health of the patient makes sense when you'll likely be responsible for the single most traumatic minute of a person's life as Liston wrote a surgeon quote must consider his labor only begun when the operation is finished the patient is yet to be conducted by kindness and judgment through the process of cure it's a nice thought but I don't think bedside manner really comes into play when you're ripping muscle off the bone it's not going to help me if you're like are you feeling any pain what he's getting at without I think even realizing it is that they'll probably have some sort of post-traumatic stress of course resulting from it and that they should be looked after and tended to for their mental health afterwards oh I see what you're saying I thought we were talking like bedside manner while he was doing The Ripping no I'm sure he just did that as quickly as possible probably looked good while doing it I mean with a knife in his mouth it's kind of sexy I know if he was doing it shirtless or something I imagine now I understand the line well on top of all this of course Liston was also a Cracker Jack sturgeon the fastest saw in the Kingdom able to perform an above the knee amputation in under 30 seconds though this wasn't known at the time speed meant a body's insides had less time exposed to the operating theater's germ-riddled air oh my God I forgot this was happening in a [ __ ] theater oh yeah baby how did I think about that they probably made a killing on tickets if this guy is jacked and probably handsome and he's sitting there like foot up just doing this I'm sure people were in that theater I mean I'm sure sometimes maybe they let people from the public come in but a lot of times it was like at medical schools where um trainees would watch you know or I don't know maybe you could pay who knows people were sick back then not a lot of entertainment honestly if I were alive at this time I think I'd pay money to go see this I wonder though like did what do you because there's such quick sessions that is it like you do bundle like multiple back-to-back showings you just pay for one Thirty second show three amputations for the price of one that's the best I can do that's the best I can do listings track record spoke for itself while working at London's University College Hospital around 10 percent of his patients died on the table compared to a nearby hospital where 25 percent of patients were lost it's easy to see why patients waited days for the privilege to be hacked to bits by old Bobby Liston 25 that has a hefty amount that's a lot 10 also a little unnerving but 25 you know you're going in a place with a one in four chance of uh dying on the table I'll wait in line listen also wrote two textbooks on surgery and invented several surgical implements to Aid him including the list in splint and walking forceps which are still used today wow impressive listen was known to quarrel regularly with other doctors and held his assistance to an extremely high standard his combativeness was at least framed around what was the best care for a patient and he made sure his assistants knew there was no ill will by inviting them to his home for dinner oh still the good doctor did develop a bit of an ego since surgeries in the Victorian era often took place in a literal theater Liston would crawl out to the crowd before his first incision gentlemen time me for their part the audience withdrew their pocket watches and obliged I feel like the one person I wouldn't have fun is probably the patience yeah Abby take your time buddy that's true if I'm sitting strapped down being held down more orderlies the last thing I want the guy with the [ __ ] Giant Knife to be like is timely it's pretty rude honestly it's rude and they're awake they could hear it all but again if I'm in the audience I'm loving it oh sure yeah but surgery should be an audience of one now while Robert Liston was the best he of course wasn't perfect once sent liston's haste to remove a leg his knife took a testicle along with it oops he accidentally cut someone's balls off allegedly that may have happened yeah what do you mean allegedly I'm gonna need a firm yes or no it's rumored to have happened what was he aiming for I'm going to assume he was probably aiming for something else I'm not sure how you missed you this is a big big stroke he's a big guy it's a big stroke yeah and it's not like the balls could be mistaken for any other body part they're pretty distinct the balls are also like they're under they're under usually the penis I don't know look we've we've all made mistakes we've all accidentally chopped people's balls off if he lops one of my testicles off yeah I'm gonna feel intimidated I can't complain I'm not gonna throw up a lawsuit against this guy because he'll he's very scary he want a little doctor like Doogie Howser yes because then I could be like Dougie what the [ __ ] do you do to my ball dude I remember that episode another time when Consulting on a neck mass in a child listing conquerly stabbed it with a knife believing it to be just an abscess turns out it was an aneurysm which listen didn't think a boy could suffer from and the young man bled out awkward hey what was Robert liston's worst surgical mistake hey he realized he was sawing off the wrong leg halfway through a surgery B the patient died along with two other people present or see he mistook a patient for the patient's brother resulting in both dying got it oh what are your answers I'm gonna go with a good news bad news the good news is we cut the leg off the bad news is it's the wrong one I'm also going with a as well oh Double A's you know I just imagine that it is haste you know he's probably grandstanding he's like she made me look at the audience like a Teppanyaki Chef yeah um anyway let's find out via the magic of theater I'll be right back I wonder what's the acceptable amount of deaths on your watch for a surgeon nowadays that's actually your question okay I'm about to remove this dude's leg assistant hold this Rascal down don't worry DrListon I've gotten good and ouch oh oops looks like he cut my finger off there oh [Music] that's a problem I suppose I say I think your assistant is a diet of sepsis he caught from that rotten leg you're saying why is Abraham Lincoln what you what was that whoa oh Jesus dude watch where you're flailing that knife what'd you say oh God you just cut me with that disease knife oh [ __ ] sir oh cripes I think I think that dude just died of fear oh no this the patient died of sepsis oh boy this is not my day bad day at the office Very Bad Day okay points to neither of you sorry yes well some disc ity of this story as you should for any tale where someone dies of fright but if true this surgery is thought to be the only one in history with a 300 percent mortality rate yowza that's crazy man yeah again I'm guessing it's because of the time limit but you're swinging that knife around very very scary hey imagine being at that show now that's getting your money yeah that's a hot ticket the reviews were probably raving the next morning in the paper it's like oh my God you hear about last week Arya got tickets to the Triple H now remember this was from the best surgeon alive with the hurdles of Victorian medicine there was only so much that skill and a six foot two frame could get you luckily a huge Advance called the Yankee Dodge was right around the corner hey what was the Yankee Dodge hey ether B surgical gloves or c a precursor to blood transfusion okay what do you got I guess the uh I'm gonna go with a The Ether just because of that one scene in blue velvet not one scene you know you're not talking about you I didn't know what ether was I didn't go with either Aria surgical gloves surgical gloves well a point two beats bye yay first synthesized in 1846 from a mixture of sulfuric acid and alcohol by William Morton a dentist practicing across the pond in Boston ether was proving revolutionary in dental procedures perhaps it could work for other operations as well in Victorian surgery it was no secret that the patient being awake and upset the whole time was affecting outcomes some doctors had even experimented with hypnotism without success in an attempt to subdue patients within weeks of William Morton successfully removing a tooth on an E3 patient list and saw where the future of medicine was heading and he ushered it in personally so what exactly what is either it's like a it's like a gas it's kind of like laughing gas isn't it a little bit if you have too much of it it'll you'll pass out well let's talk about the first surgery with ether on December 21st 1846 a hastily assembled crowd gathered in the University College of London's operating theater to watch 36 year old Butler Frederick Churchill lose his leg his right knee had a bone infection causing it to swell into a grotesque bend the leg was coming off he may as well try to catch some z's while it happened you know what honestly at this point I'm taking it the alternative is to be awake while they cut my leg off I agree I'll give it a whirl Churchill inhaled from The Ether and within minutes he was out cold listened turned to the crowd told them to time him and a mere 28 seconds later the leg was gone and fully sewn up Churchill hadn't even flinched waking a few minutes later Churchill's first question was when the surgery was supposed to begin I imagined to his great relief Churchill was shown the stump under his hip where a leg had once been the audience was blown away as Liston yelled out this Yankee Dodge beats mesmerism Hollow it was a new dawn for medicine ushered in by one of a now bygone eras greats I guess you would have hoped the triple homicide would have made him drop the whole time me act plus he got up the ante because people are expecting more of these subsequent shows yeah I guess oh I see what you're saying yeah I suppose glad the ether worked unfortunately Liston didn't get to see the Leaps and Bounds that surgery would take in the coming decades on December 7 1847 less than a year after performing Britain's first surgery with ether Robert Liston died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at age 53.