Surgical techniques: past,present and future

The aim of this paper is to provide an analyt-ical survey of the information available on the development of past and present surgical tech-niques, and to make projections for the future. For the purposes of this paper, the Past starts in the Neolithic period and ends in the 1800s. In this context, I have divided the Past into Prehistoric, Ancient and Middle Ages, and this period ends in the second half of the 19th centu-ry when the major obstacles to the further devel-opment of surgery, such as overcoming pain and infection, were removed. We will discuss the development of surgical techniques, and the obstacles and opportunities prevalent in thes