Doctor Georg Handell and the knife swallower of Halle.
Handell was presented with a most difficult therapeutic problem when he saw Rudloff. Laparotomy was being done for the suturing of intestinal wounds incurred in battle during the last part of the 17th century but the report by von Dreyhaupt does not mention operative removal of the knife as a method of treatment. If Handell knew this information, he may have thought that the risk of an operation to remove a knife which had been in place for a prolonged period of time was prohibitive.
Department of Medical Education, Liberty Medical Center, Incorporated, Baltimore.
J M
JM
Miller
D000059:Accidents; D000293:Adolescent; D005547:Foreign Bodies / Q000150:complications / Q000266:history* / Q000601:surgery; D005858:Germany; D049670:History, 17th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013270:Stomach