[HN Gopher] The scalpel: From flint to zirconium-coated steel (2...
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       The scalpel: From flint to zirconium-coated steel (2018)
        
       Author : accrual
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2024-08-25 17:23 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.facs.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.facs.org)
        
       | trhway wrote:
       | > For all the improvements evident in contemporary surgical
       | technology, electron microscopic images actually confirm that the
       | edge of Neolithic obsidian blades exceed today's steel scalpels
       | in sharpness.
       | 
       | couple tangential comments from back then in USSR:
       | 
       | - the famous eye surgeon Fyodorov made his breakthrough by using
       | pieces of broken single-use shaving razor blade (very sharp
       | hardened edge) as an eye microsurgery scalpel blade (for what
       | today is Lasik).
       | 
       | - an old highly skilled metal worker from my father's department
       | at the shipyards was doing scalpel sharpening for the large Navy
       | hospital nearby. Like many things in USSR it was unofficial, yet
       | it was better than official way. As my father organized it, the
       | hospital returned the favor by taking me, a civilian, when i
       | needed some surgery - not life-threatening, yet i didn't want to
       | wait for the official civilian hospital, and it was closer to
       | home and the surgeon was much better (curiously, decades later a
       | doctor here, in US, asked with a high interest "where did you
       | have such a nice job done" :)
        
       | bcatanzaro wrote:
       | Anyone else found it odd that the article says "For all the
       | improvements evident in contemporary surgical technology,
       | electron microscopic images actually confirm that the edge of
       | Neolithic obsidian blades exceed today's steel scalpels in
       | sharpness" and then cites a paper about obsidian blades from
       | 1982?
       | 
       | Has there been no improvement in sharpness in 42 years? Or are
       | Neolithic obsidian blades just that much sharper?
        
         | _a_a_a_ wrote:
         | apparently yes. Broken glass (which obsidian is, a volcanic
         | glass) have edges a few atoms wide beating anything manmade.
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-28 23:01 UTC)