A Short History of
Ostomy
Since the beginning of time people have suffered problems with
digestion and diseases of the rectum and colon.
There is medical papyrus dating back over 3500 years which gives
advice and prescriptions or "recipes" for the treatment of
a range of commonly encountered problems. Ingredients included
honey, myrrh, flour and the fat from an ibex.
400 years BC a famous Roman surgeon, Praxagore, opened the gut
of a patient and emptied out the contents and then closed the wound.
Unfortunately there is no report of whether the patient survived or
not.
It was not until more than 2,000 years later before things moved
on. In 1706 a Frenchman, Georges Deppes, was wounded at the battle
of Ramilles and yet lived for a further fourteen years with a
prolapsed colostomy. The first true colostomy was performed in
France sixty years later by a Monsieur Pillore on a wine merchant.
The operation was successful, however the patient died of mercury
poisoning from earlier attempts to solve the problem of a blocked
bowel.
Monsieur Pillore even developed a primitive collecting device in
the form of a sponge held in place with an elastic bandage.
The next developments appeared almost simultaneously in both
England and France. For the first time we see much more attention
being paid to the patient's well-being after surgery. A whole
variety of methods - from leather pouches to glass bottles, and in
one case a pad and box device was produced. All were aimed at
allowing the patient to return to as normal a life as possible.
There were no really significant changes for ostomists until the
onset of the second world war.
In the 1940's specially designed rubber bags were introduced
which incorporated removable screws at the bottom of the appliance.
This enabled the wearer to drain the bag without removing it every
time - the forerunner of the modern drainable bag, but still light
years away from the range of products in use today.
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