The earliest text on surgery is the anonymous treatise now titled the Bamberg Surgery (c. 1150). Among the conditions described are fractures and dislocations, surgical lesions of the eye and ear, diseases of the skin, haemorrhoids, sciatica and hernia.48 There is a description for the treatment of goitre with substances containing iodine, and for a form of surgical anaesthesia, a ‘soporific sponge’ soaked in hyoscyamus and poppy.
