The traumatologist and the battlefield: the book that changed the history of traumatology

Abstract

This is a brief historical essay about the 16th century European military surgeon Hans von Gersdorff (approximately 1455 to 1529 in Strasbourg) and his epochal illustrated text, Feldbuch der Wundtartzney (Field Book of Surgery), the first manual of traumatology describing the treatment of battle injuries covering topics ranging from human anatomy to pharmacy, as a guide to field surgery, and explaining the use of surgical instruments developed by Gersdorff himself; for the first time in medical history, a precursor to scientific books for practitioners, this manual is a precious source of information, and it is illustrated by hand-colored woodcuts, attributed to distinguished German renaissance artist Hans Wechtlin; this combination of text and pictures made the Feldbuch a point of reference in the process of arriving at modern traumatology.