POP QUIZ – Teacher Aide (engage)

1.True or False. The earliest surgical tools were made of Iron.

(False)

Possible Student Misconception: True because surgical tools must be made of metal.

Background: The earliest tools were made of Obsidian volcanic rock or bronze. Stone tools are the oldest strong cutting tools in existence. When Copper was discovered 9000 years ago that became the first metal strong enough to perform a similar task as stone. Gold was too soft and bent too easily. Copper too was soft so it wasn’t until bronze was developed about 4000 BC that a hard metal to replace stone was possible. Eventually, iron was invented about 2000 BC which was a stronger metal. And finally, by 500 BC, steel was in use (the strongest metal for everyday appliances today).

2.Which came first? A. Human to Human Blood transfusion or B. Discovery of different Blood types. (A)

Possible Student Misconception: B because you can’t have a successful transfusion without first knowing the blood types.

Background: Human to Human Blood transfusion was successfully performed in 1829 by James Blundell of England. This was done despite the fact that physicians were still unaware of the fact that there were different blood types.

Ponder Question: How many people died before James Blundell got lucky and ‘matched’ his transfusion patient’s blood with the right donor?

3.Which came first? A. A successful Animal to Human blood transfusion or B. A successful Human to Human blood transfusion. (A)

Possible Student Misconception: B because we can’t take blood from animals.

Background: Oddly enough, the animal to human transfusion worked despite early experiments that used animals always proving fatal. In 1667, Jean Denys (French doctor) transferred blood from a lamb to boy and the boy survived.

4.What was Louis Pasteur discovery: A. That bacteria settles into diseased parts of the body. Or B. That bacteria caused parts of the body to become diseased. (B)

Possible Student Misconception: That Pasteur discovered bacteria so he noticed it was in diseased parts of the body.

Background: By the time of Louis Pasteur, physicians knew that bacteria existed in diseased parts of the body. He made the connection that bacteria CAUSED the parts of the body to get diseased.

5.True or False. The earliest evidence of surgical procedures being performed was in Babylonia. (True)

Possible Student Misconception: Babylonia was to far back (4000 years ago) and surgery must be a more recent invention.

Background: In Babylonia, Obsidian and bronze knives were common for surgery as were saws, trephines, and skull boring drills.

6.Toilets that actually drained into underground sewers and washed out into the ocean were introduced by which culture? A. The Romans or B. The English. (A)

Possible Student Misconception: Since the English are given credit for the invention of the flushing toilet (John Harington 1596) the Romans could not have had a draining toilet so long ago.

Background: The Romans by AD 200 had toilets that drained into underground sewers that washed out into the Tiber River and then out to sea. The Romans, who had public baths and toilets, were very much into cleanliness before 500AD. They separated their drinking water source from their drainage source. They did this by creating miles of stone channels in which water was brought from the hills to their cities. After the Fall of the Roman Empire, their hygienic practices were abandoned because they required too much knowledge of Infrastructure and too much maintenance so people eventually forgot about their draining toilets. It took 1000 years before John Harington re-introduced the idea of a ‘water closet’ that drains. But even then, it wasn’t adopted. It would take another 200 years before the flushing toilet was finally reinvented and adopted.

Ponder Question: Where did all of the clean drinking water the Romans had come from?

(Answer: The Roman built aqueducts that brought water into cities from the countryside. In Rome alone, 300 miles of stone channels existed for the 1 million+ residents.)

7.True or False. Before the 16th century, physicians thought the human liver was made up of 5 sections because a pig’s liver had 5 sections. (True)

Possible Student Misconception: False because Why would anyone thing that a pig liver could be similar to a human’s liver.

Background: In 1540, it was proven that the human liver was made up of just one part and not divided into 5 sections. The reason physicians thought we had a liver with 5 sections is because in the 2nd century AD, Galen (a Greek surgeon) conducted dissection research to learn more about the human body. One problem though, he could not perform dissections on humans as the Greek decided that was unethical. His solution was to dissect pigs.

8.What came first? A. The theory that the heart makes blood constantly. Or B. The theory that the heart is a pump that circulates blood. (A)

Possible Student Misconception: B because that is what the heart does and the other one makes no sense so it must not even be true and therefore never existed.

Background: A is the correct answer. The theory that the heart MAKES blood is false but was considered true from the 2nd century AD until AD 1628 (17th century).

9.Who invented the idea of inoculation for Smallpox? A. The Chinese in the 10th century AD or B. The English in the 18th century AD. (A) Possible Student Misconception: Smallpox was not eradicated until the 20th century, so the inoculation knowledge must have come later not earlier.

Background: The Chinese were the first to come up with the idea of small pox inoculation which is to contaminate people with small amounts of the virus in order to prevent them from having a deadlier reaction to a more virulent strain. The Chinese would take plugs of cotton smeared with material containing small amounts of virus and place them in the nose.

10.What came first? A. Ether as anesthesia or B. The Microscope. (B)

Possible Student Misconception: Ether as anesthesia since surgery was being conducted for so long.

Background: The Microscope was invented in the 17th century while the use of Ether as anesthesia was introduced in the 19th century.) Before that, you had to clench your teeth and bare it. In some societies, hallucinogenic drugs may have been used to ‘distract’ the patient.