History Main / MeatgrinderSurgery

** Don't be absurd. [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment If you do it badly, you lose the game.]]

** During ''The Naked and the Dead'', a meatgrinder ''transfusion'' is shown, with Medic simply scooping the blood out of puddles with any available cloth (including underwear) and pouring it back into his exsanguinated team's wounds, getting them back in order instantly. The ensuing conversation between Ms. Pauling and the Medic lampshades it, with him joking about medical school being useless, then telling her as a TwoFacedAside that worrying about blood types is the ''least'' of her problems. It'd seem he's plenty aware none of what he does makes much sense, but it works anyways; why should he bother?

** Also in ''New Vegas'', one of the quests, [[spoiler: 'Et Tumor, Brute?', requires removal of Caesar's brain tumor]]. You can do it if you have a Medicine Skill of at least 75 and acquire a pretty expensive quest item plus one very useful rare item (especially on Hardcore mode) ... or just have a Luck at 9, at which moment the Courier just wings it.

*** He is, however, somewhat capable at reattaching severed limbs. Even if he ''was'' the one who severed them in the first place.
*** And if the limb in question ends up on the wrong side.

* There was a woman in rural Mexico who was having some childbirth complications. She was miles away from any hospital and had no car or phone. Her husband was away at work, and her nearest neighbors were a good distance away. So she drank some tequila and performed a caesarian section ''[[SelfSurgery on herself,]]'' but both she and the baby were fine.

* ''[[http://fav.me/dd5rggt Spice Fortress: Is there a Medic in The House]]'', [[Music/MelanieC Melanie The Fighter]] is subjected to this, never mind the fact she [[SkipTheAnesthetic wasn’t any pain killers]]. At least, she [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction pretty chilled]].

* In ''Film/{{Downfall}}'', the only way to treat any serious injury during the battle of Berlin is to knock out the patient and amputate a limb, which have filled up the buckets used to collect them. And medicine, including painkillers, are becoming desperately rare.

* Eric Flint's book ''[[Literature/TrailOfGlory 1812: The Rivers of War]]'' provides an excellent example of this, which was TruthInTelevision at the time. The patient denies the issued anaestetic, which is raw Navy rum (he has a bottle of emergency laudanum packed away, which he uses), but he knows that refusing the anaesthetic the surgeon tried to give him would be good for his reputation regardless. Also, a quote:

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' -- Professor Farnsworth decides the best way to carry out Bender's delicate gender reassignment is with a sledgehammer. Yeah, he's a robot, but ''a sledgehammer''.

*** Don't forget his old friend Mr. [=McGreg=], with a leg for an arm, and an arm for a leg!

* Before anesthesia, the surgeon needed to tie down the patient or have assistants restrain them before he operated. For added fun, there was no such thing as blood transfusion to replace what was lost in the surgery; no bottled oxygen to keep the blood that was still inside the patient capable of sustaining the body; and germ theory had not yet arrived, let alone impressed upon surgeons the vital importance of washing their hands. Oh, and in a lot of places, surgeons acquired their knowledge of anatomy from inaccurate and dated textbooks (or had to just cut in and start learning on the job) because dissecting corpses, a standard learning aid today, was illegal or at least extremely difficult. The primary talent that a surgeon used to need was ''speed'' because if you cut fast, sawed fast, and closed up fast, there was some chance that your patient wouldn't die. Oh - and some operating theatres were literally theatres, in that people could pay to watch a surgery for entertainment. You may shudder now if you have not already begun.

* Orthopedic surgery (in layman's terms, ''skeletal'' surgery) can appear this way, with the use of power tools, hand tools, and hardware similar to those seen in a workshop (although sterile and much more expensive), as well as the use of what appears to be strenuous amounts of physical pulling and tugging by surgical staff (to ensure proper alignment of joints and bones, etc.). For this reason, it is said that an orthopedic surgeon must be as strong as an ox, [[StealthInsult and TWICE]] [[DontExplainTheJoke as smart]]!

* There was a woman in rural Mexico who was having some childbirth complications. She was miles away from any hospital and had no car or phone. Her husband was away at work, and her nearest neighbors were a good distance away. So she drank some tequila and performed a caesarian section ''[[SelfSurgery on herself!]]'' Both she and the baby were fine.
* Many cultures have various forms of genital cutting/modification, often performed as a rite of passage. Often, these are performed by traditional practitioners (traditional healers/midwives, shamans, etc.) or relatives/family friends...and in this case, the implements are usually not washed or sterilized in between. (Sometimes, a mass cutting ritual takes place, where the same knife is used over and over.) Not helping matters is the fact that many times, these procedures are ''not'' performed under an anesthetic. Special mention goes to the most extreme forms of FGM/C: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Type_III Type III or infibulation]]. (Warning: *VERY* disturbing content!)

* In Film/{{Downfall}}, the only way to treat any serious injury during the battle of Berlin is to knock out the patient and amputate a limb, which have filled up the buckets used to collect them. And medicine, including painkillers, are becoming desperately rare.

* Lauchlan of Literature/MixBeerWithLiquorAndYouWillGetSicker was subjected to this sort of surgery as a child, [[spoiler:having had his right eye gouged by an angry jackdaw, and a serious compound fracture from the subsequent fall that both had to be tended to right then and there. He was given alcohol but that didn't quite do the trick, his family members actually had to ''hold him down'' so that the surgeon could work.]] It was justified in that it was set in the 1800s, and Lauchlan would have likely bled to death in the time taken to get him to any proper anesthetics. As you can imagine, Lauchlan was, and remains, rather traumatized by the incident.

* ''VideoGame/DungeonMunchies'' has "Forced Surgery," a part of your "health plan" from your boss/necromancer, Simmer. Your zombie player character is operated on by a fellow undead "employee," attaching brand new, much less rotten feet to your own; an extra pair of smaller arms around your waist for climbing; and later on, a new butt with a compressed-air tank built in. While the operations themselves are not shown, you DO see the new parts being grafted on you, and all the blood splatter and the literal back-alley set-up aren't very pleasant, either.

More rarely, this ''can'' also be PlayedForDrama. The trope might be justified if the surgery takes place before the 20th century, for instance, or under field conditions, or ''both'' (see Real Life). Whatever the reason, it's never pretty-- ''pray'' they'll go for a DiscretionShot.

** Frank tries to be professional, but occasionally falls into this trope, usually helped along by keeping Leslie (who has had ''no'' medical training) as his assistant. One notable example is when Frank is performing an operation, but has no anesthesia thanks to budget cuts. When he asks what painkillers they have left, Leslie offers up a six-pack of beer and a copy of James Joyce's ''Ulysses''. When Frank opts to use the latter, Leslie gets several sentences in before everyone (Frank included) falls asleep from boredom. The next comic shows that the patient has begun to wake up mid-surgery, so Leslie is preparing to knock him out with a sledgehammer.

* PlayedForDrama in ''Fanfic/AloneTogether'': Kim and Shego have been stranded in an otherwise [[GhostPlanet unpopulated]] [[AlternateUniverse world]] long enough to become friends when Kim develops [[RupturedAppendix appendicitis]]. Shego manages to perform an appendectomy guided by frantic review of medical texts, constantly terrified that one wrong move will kill Kim and leave her [[GoMadFromTheIsolation utterly alone]].

* Wilbur in ''Disney/TheRescuersDownUnder'' is threatened with this by a group of mice, before he decides he feels fine and decides to check out early.

* ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'' presents 1980's medicine as this, from the perspective of 23rd century starfleet surgeon Dr. Leonard "Bones" [=McCoy=], along with a subplot to rescue Chekhov from such ''primitive'' attempts at medicine.

* Following the disastrous first battle of Klendatu in ''Film/StarshipTroopers'', Carmen and Zander walk by a one legged soldier who pleads: "Just give me something doc!"
* In Film/{{Downfall}}, the only way to treat any serious injury during the battle of Berlin is to knock out the patient, and amputate a limb, which have filled up the buckets used to collect them. And medicine, including painkillers, are becoming desperately rare.

* Standard medical practice in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'''s Ankh-Morpork involves hitting the patient over the head with a hammer to anesthetize them. The only real doctor in the city (Dr. Lawn from ''Discworld/NightWatch'') is seen as crazy for worrying about things like sanitation, sterilization, and the survival of his patients... until Sam Vimes rewarded him for [[spoiler: saving his wife and newborn son]] by helping him open his own hospital. This is one of the reasons that, prior to ''Night Watch'', the most employed physician in the city was "Doughnut Jimmy" Folsom, a horse vet. The reasoning goes, a good racehorse is expensive and a big earner, so Jimmy could choose between keeping his patients alive or having the last words he hear be something like "Da boss is ''very'' unhappy."
** Ankh-Morpork is also the home of the the delightful new form of medicine known as [[http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Retrophrenology "retrophrenology."]]

* This trope is zig-zagged in the ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'' series. Human medical treatment is standard for UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars, however the tools used by dragon surgeons could easily pass for melee weapons... but then given the [[IncrediblyLamePun scale]] of their patients most of the injuries that can be treated by human physicians are relatively superficial.
* Touched upon in the Creator/TomClancy novel ''[[Literature/JackRyan Without Remorse]]'', whose protagonist has some rather ugly scars from "meatball surgery" of the sort touched upon in the entry for ''M*A*S*H'' above.
* Lauchlan of Literature/MixBeerWithLiquorAndYouWillGetSicker was subjected to this sort of surgery as a child, [[spoiler:having had his right eye gouged by an angry jackdaw, and a serious compound fracture from the subsequent fall that both had to be tended to right then and there. He was given alcohol but that didn't quite do the trick, his family members actually had to ''hold him down'' so that the surgeon could work.]] It was justified in that it was set in the 1800's, and Lauchlan would have likely bled to death in the time taken to get him to any proper anesthetics. As you can imagine, Lauchlan was, and remains, rather traumatized by the incident.

* The events of one episode of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' forced Dr. Keller perform brain surgery on [=McKay=] with a power drill in a dank cave.

* On ''Series/{{Rome}}'', after Titus gets a skull fructure from being struck on the head in a tavern brawl, he's tied into place, gagged, and the surgeon removes the piece of skull that got loose, then fits a small metal plate in. Titus passed out from the pain early on, thankfully.
* The realistic version is PlayedForDrama in ''Series/CodeBlack'' on a very regular basis, given that time is frequently short and resources often scarce at best. Drs. Leanne Rorish and Ethan Willis in particular have turned the "splash-and-slash"[[note]]splash on some antiseptic, then slash the patient open[[/note]] into a bona fide art form.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXROnzpsrlg The Drugs Song]] by the British comedy duo Creator/AmateurTransplants is a PatterSong that lists an impossibly long sequence of a various drugs that need to be known by a GP doctor, and then ends in this gem of a quote:

* This trope is invoked in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' by Ork doctors, the painboyz (also known as Doks, or Mad Doks), whose idea of "anesthesia" is giving the patient a violent concussion. Some don't even bother to use anesthetic at all, preferring to have their patient squirming and kicking so they know he's still alive. Orks are so inhumanly tough that they not only survive, but usually fully recover very quickly- which to the doks means they have plenty of leeway for [[PlayingWithSyringes experimentation and personal amusement]] (successful ork ''head transplants'' are entirely possible). Having a Painboy in a unit gives all of its members a chance of ignoring damage- its unclear whether this is because the dok [[YouWontFeelAThing treats the injuries]], or if the nearby [[FateWorseThanDeath reminder of what awaits the injured]] encourages Orks to ignore little things like [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain bullets to the head]] and [[YouCallThatAWound missing limbs]].

* Doctor Zed in ''Videogame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' asks the protagonists (crazy gun-toting badasses) to assist in an operation to mend a captured Hyperion engineer's lungs; asking the player to carefully make a small incision below the sternum. Pressing the button to "Perform surgery" causes you to stab the man in the chest with a pickaxe or punch his chest open.

** Also in ''New Vegas'', one of quests, [[spoiler: 'Et Tumor, Brute?', requires a removal of Caesar's brain tumor]]. You can do it if you have a Medicine Skill of at least 75 and acquire a pretty expensive quest item plus one very useful rare item (especially on Hardcore mode) ... or just have a Luck at 9, at which moment the Courier just wings it.

* PlayedForDrama in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVGroundZeroes'', where the surgery to extract Paz's stomach bomb is pretty much a matter of cutting her open and digging around in her intestines while Big Boss holds her down, all while Paz is fully conscious and screaming her lungs out. It's actually a justified case, since the bomb is on a timer and they're performing it in a moving helicopter near an enemy base, so they simply don't have the time for a legitimate surgery or the luxury of being able to just take cover in case it goes off.

* In ''Webcomic/TheLastDaysOfFoxhound'' during the Normandy invasion The Boss (then known a The Joy) went into labor while on the battlefield, and performed a c-section on herself. She and the baby were both fine, while the baby's father The Sorrow passed out pretty much immediately when she made the first cut.

* ''Webcomic/DeepRise'': Deep Nobles are a walking combination of meatgrinders, eldritch tentacles, and genius bioengineers. Any surgery they perform is almost guaranteed to maximize invasive pain and grotesque assimilation. On the plus side, they've developed cures to world hunger and aging.

** Stumpy again winds up being a victim of this when he asks [[{{Jerkass}} Mr. Cat]] to help him when he has a toothache. Mr. Cat uses a chainsaw, a jackhammer and other things and somehow turns Stumpy's head into a fire extinguisher. Stumpy is back to normal in a few minutes.

* ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': Knock Out usually goes a more painless route (as painless as a Decepticon opts to be anyway), and him surgically [[spoiler:inserting a new T-cog into Starscream]] went off without a hitch. However when Megatron asks him to graft a new arm onto him in his pursuit of power, Knock Out wants to put him in stasis, only for Megatron to inform Knock Out that he wishes to be awake to witness it. Knock Out just shrugs, whips out his buzz saw and starts cutting away.

* Brain surgery involves drilling a hole in someone's head. The drill functions exactly the same as the one you use at home; just a little more fancy, a '''lot''' more expensive, and more carefully cleaned [--or so the patient very sincerely hopes--]. Plus, the anesthetic.

* Before anesthesia, the surgeon needed to tie down the patient or have assistants restrain them before he operated. For added fun, there was no such thing as blood transfusion to replace what was lost in the surgery; no bottled oxygen to keep the blood that was still inside the patient capable of sustaining the body; and germ theory had not yet arrived, let alone impressed upon surgeons the vital importance of washing their hands. Oh, and in a lot of places, surgeons acquired their knowledge of anatomy from inaccurate and dated textbooks (or had to just cut in and start learning on the job) because dissecting corpses, a standard learning aid today, was illegal or at least extremely difficult. The primary talent a surgeon used to need was ''speed'', because if you cut fast, sawed fast, and closed up fast, there was some chance that your patient wouldn't die. Oh - and some operating theatres were literally theatres, in that people could pay to watch a surgery for entertainment. You may shudder now, if you have not already begun.

* Cataract is a condition where the eye lens become clouded and results in loss of sight, and treated through surgery. The earliest cataract surgery was 800 BC, using a curved needle to [[EyeScream scrape the insides of the eye.]]
* There was a woman in rural Mexico who was having some childbirth complications. She was miles away from any hospital, and had no car or phone. Her husband was away at work, and her nearest neighbors were a good distance away. So she drank some tequila and performed a caesarian section ''[[SelfSurgery on herself!]]'' Both she and the baby were fine.

* The practice of "gishiri cutting," which is performed in parts of Africa for therapeutic reasons (although there is no evidence that it ''actually'' helps any of the gynecological problems it's supposed to alleviate...in fact, it tends to make them worse, or create some ''interesting'' new ones). A knife is placed ''inside the vagina'', and then drawn back out again, as many times as deemed necessary.

* PlayedForDrama in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidGroundZeroes'', where the surgery to extract Paz's stomach bomb is pretty much a matter of cutting her open and digging around in her intestines while Big Boss holds her down, all while Paz is fully conscious and screaming her lungs out. It's actually a justified case, since the bomb is on a timer and they're performing it in a moving helicopter near an enemy base, so they simply don't have the time for a legitimate surgery or the luxury of being able to just take cover in case it goes off.

* Before anesthesia, the surgeon needed to tie down the patient or have assistants restrain them before he operated. For added fun, there was no such thing as blood transfusion to replace what was lost in the surgery; no bottled oxygen to keep the blood that was still inside the patient capable of sustaining the body; and germ theory had not yet arrived, let alone impressed upon surgeons the vital importance of washing their hands. Oh, and in a lot of places, surgeons acquired their knowledge of anatomy from inaccurate and dated textbooks (or had to just cut in and start learning on the job) because dissecting corpses, a standard learning aid today, was illegal or at least extremely difficult. The primary talent a surgeon used to need was ''speed'', because if you cut fast, sawed fast, and closed up fast, there was at some chance that your patient wouldn't die. Oh - and some operating theatres were literally theatres, in that people could pay to watch a surgery for entertainment. You may shudder now, if you have not already begun.

* Before anesthesia, the surgeon needed to tie down the patient or have assistants restrain them before he operated.

* Done in the SubStory ''Destination Tokyo''. Based on a real incident aboard USS ''Seadragon'', a pharmacist's mate performs an emergency appendectomy on one of his crewmates.

* Amputating limbs is done with an electric saw. It also looks and acts a lot like a regular hand tool.
** There's a reason why in times past, one common nickname for a doctor was "sawbones". Sawtoothed knives were used for the amputations.

* Comes up in ''{{Sharpe}}'' once or twice, set as it is in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe himself removes a man's shattered arm with a sword (it's easier to stop the bleeding from one large wound than lots of little ones) and Harper pulls out one of his own teeth with pliers.

* Surgery in ''Series/{{MASH}}'' is not as bad as this trope but the various characters regard it that way since it is a lot rougher than it would be in a proper hospital. The general term used in the show is "Meatball Surgery". Of course, being a frontline hospital unit, their jobs are to simply to save the patient and make sure they stay alive long enough to get sent to an evac hospital where they can be further treated before being sent to a hospital either in Tokyo or Stateside.

** This is a popular myth, but not exactly based in historical fact. Ether was available as early as UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, and the use of forceps to tie off the blood vessels and arteries (invented, among other places, in Ancient Egypt) had been rediscovered in the 1600s - not that, of course, without the sterilization of medical instruments being a given, it helped survival rates much. Battlefield surgery wasn't ''pretty'', but it wasn't "biting the bullet" either. It was the recovery process in the hospitals that was more likely to kill you, actually, as you waited around to see if you got gangrene or not and tried not to catch anything from the sick and wounded people all around you.

* Many cultures have various forms of genital cutting/modification, often performed as a rite of passage. Often, these are performed by traditional practitioners (traditional healers/midwives, shamans, etc.) or relatives/family friends...and in this case, the implements are usually not be washed or sterilized in between. (Sometimes, a mass cutting ritual takes place, where the same knife is used over and over.) Not helping matters is the fact that many times, these procedures are ''not'' performed under an anesthetic. Special mention goes to the most extreme forms of FGM/C: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Type_III Type III or infibulation]]. (Warning: *VERY* disturbing content!)

* In ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry 5'', Passionate Patti gets this treatment with a drill during a TrackingDevice implantation.

** Also in ''New Vegas'', one of quests, 'Et Tumor, Brute?', requires a removal of Caesar's brain tumor. You can do it if you have a Medicine Skill of at least 75 and acquire a pretty expensive quest item plus one pretty useful rare item ... or just by having a Luck at 9, at which moment the Courrier just wings it.

*** He is however somewhat capable at reattaching severed limbs. Even if he ''was'' the one who severed them in the first place.

** [[spoiler: Stumpy winds up being a victim of this in Episode 78 when Olaf tries to turn him into a cyborg by giving him surgery with no anasthetic using a drill and a chainsaw. Miraculously, he survives it, but his cyborganic implants suck. Fortunately, NegativeContinuity has him back to normal by the next episode.]]

* Wilbur in ''Disney/TheRescuersDownUnder'' is threatened with this by a group of mice, before he decides he feels fine and decides to check out early.

* Kenny gets one of these in ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'', after his attempt to set his [[FartsOnFire fart on fire]] literally backfires. They end up replacing his heart with a baked potato.

** Ankh-Morpork is also the home of the the delightful new form of medicine known as [[http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Retrophrenology "retrophrenology"]].

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M68GeL8PafE Gumby Brain Surgery]]. Complete with a blow-on-the-head anesthetic.

*** Don't forget his old friend Mr. McGreg, with a leg for an arm, and an arm for a leg!

* A few prehistoric skulls have been found with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanation trepanations]], or holes cut through the skull. This was of course done with primitive implements, yet the bones show signs of long-term healing, which means the patient survived the surgery.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': [[spoiler: Stumpy winds up being a victim of this in Episode 78 when Olaf tries to turn him into a cyborg by giving him surgery with no anasthetic using a drill and a chainsaw. Miraculously, he survives it, but his cyborganic implants suck. Fortunately, NegativeContinuity has him back to normal by the next episode.]]