Surgery In Nelson's Navy

A lecture by Mick Crumplin, FRCS, author of "A Surgical Artist At War"

"I am shot through the arm, I am a dead man!"

So exclaimed Lord Nelson , on receiving the injury that famously led to the amputation of his right arm in April 1797. Surgery in the navy was a brutal and bloody affair, operations performed rapidly and without anaesthetic, often by lamplight as The Ship was rocked by waves.