Medieval first aid name?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Lasting crippling wounds can represent simple fractures. Compound fractures are permanent crippling barring TL6+ Surgery.

Checking Bio Tech, it turns out bone setting does indeed use Physician, not Surgery. Low Tech had it using Surgery, but then Physician didn't exist (absent an appropriate Anachronistic Skill Perk) during the time period LT covers.

An issue with such rules is that it makes Lasting Crippling much harsher if the GM rules it to have involved a broken bone - such wounds basically become Permanent Crippling if untreated (or if, prior to TL 5, the first attempt at treatment fails), making a basic broken bone function as something in between Lasting and Permanent.

Amputation, of course, does indeed use Surgery... although arguably Two-Handed Axe/Mace followed by First Aid/Physician can do in a pinch.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Nah. A compound fracture is only worse than a typical one because the bone has punctured the flesh. The resetting process is essentially identical but post treatment involves an open wound in addition to bone-setting.

To be fair, Low Tech does explicitly state compound fractures are Permanent Crippling and beyond the capabilities of TL 4- medicine to restore function. It's possible the authors mistook "compound fracture" to be referring to something else, such as the type of more-complicated break (maybe a spiral fracture, which I understand tends to be much more involved than just setting and immobilizing the bone).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

That was my suspicion, but I was getting the feeling upthread that suturing would be considered surgery, which seemed a very modern view.

Don't confuse the skills with what what the action is called in the setting. Sewing up wounds would be the kind of thing barber-surgeons did (if they were available) but it's still a pretty basic application that would be covered by the skill First Aid.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Checking Bio Tech, it turns out bone setting does indeed use Physician,


To be fair, Low Tech does explicitly state compound fractures are Permanent Crippling and beyond the capabilities of TL 4- medicine to restore function. It's possible the authors mistook "compound fracture" to be referring to something else, such as the type of more-complicated break (maybe a spiral fracture, which I understand tends to be much more involved than just setting and immobilizing the bone).

Checking definitions has "compound" fracture being the skin-breaking thing and a "comminuted" fracture being the bone being broken into multiple pieces. I had not heard that terminology before and I suspect that I have heard other people miss-use the technical language.

Anyway, it's the comminuted fracture that needs to be surgically repaired with fairly advanced surgery.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Don't confuse the skills with what what the action is called in the setting. Sewing up wounds would be the kind of thing barber-surgeons did (if they were available) but it's still a pretty basic application that would be covered by the skill First Aid.

Incidentally the change from "barber" to "barber-surgeon" is actually a sign of increasing social status (ca 1100 AD), as is the later conversion to just "surgeon". While barbers had been a choice for this sort of thing well before that - they were the guys who had really sharp tools and were used to making precise cuts - it's the monastic tradition that cements the link. Maintaining a proper tonsure was considered pretty important, so every monastic establishment needs a skilled barber.

Another option might be "dresser" - though that's a bit too modern. "Nursing" is definitely too modern. Transfer of terminology from the guys who did this sort of thing for horses - horse-leeches and menescalia ("marshals") is plausible too. Roman military medics during the period they had them seem to have been called capsarii, after their box of bandages, so I suspect period sources in Church Latin might use that if anything.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

There may not be a name for it. All of it would fall under 'healing arts' but there is not much in common with what we think of as first aid with the intent to keep an injured person from bleeding out or going into shock.

Binding wounds and treating them with ointments to reduce the chance of infection goes back to the Iliad (it even has a scene where the heroes cut around a poisoned wound- medics today say don't do that). Arrow spoons and bronze staples to close wounds go back to the Romans. But the combination of tending wounds, and dealing with drowning and near drowning, and dealing with mild poisonings, and dealing with heart attacks and strokes did come to be taught together in a specific historical context in the late 19th and early 20th century. In a low-tech setting a soldier might know how to deal with incisions and blunt trauma but not save someone who drank too much and started to throw up, because nobody had made a list of all the ways people commonly die, found simple reliable ways to treat them, and taught them all together.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Physician didn't exist (absent an appropriate Anachronistic Skill Perk) during the time period LT covers.

Don't mistake the skill name for what it actually does.

If you look at the benefits Physician skill provides it actually comes closer to what modern people would describe as Nursing, which is an ancient art.

Throughout history, physicians have primarily been diagnosticians, and prescribers and monitors of various medical treatments. When the patient couldn't treat a condition or take medicine on their own, it fell to nurses to provide care (or hospitallers for those who couldn't afford a private caregiver).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Don't mistake the skill name for what it actually does.

If you look at the benefits Physician skill provides it actually comes closer to what modern people would describe as Nursing, which is an ancient art.

Throughout history, physicians have primarily been diagnosticians, and prescribers and monitors of various medical treatments. When the patient couldn't treat a condition or take medicine on their own, it fell to nurses to provide care (or hospitallers for those who couldn't afford a private caregiver).

According to the Basic Set, Physician does not exist prior to TL5. (Low Tech offers an option of being a little cutting edge and getting it at TL4.)

I can't see any actual reason for this. All it seemingly means is that you record the Herbal Medicine skill (or Esoteric Medicine if your GM is friendly to that) at those TLs for the exact same purpose.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I can't see any actual reason for this. All it seemingly means is that you record the Herbal Medicine skill (or Esoteric Medicine if your GM is friendly to that) at those TLs for the exact same purpose.

It's a holdover from the earliest versions of GURPS. Why Steve restricted Physician (a term actually in use for a medical discipline by TL3 if not TL2 - fisique is definitely the art of healing in Old French, not the natural science physica arguably still is in Late Latin) and not First Aid (which absolutely was not) has never been clear, but controversies in the medical profession about who is allowed to call themselves what have a [long] history.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

According to the Basic Set, Physician does not exist prior to TL5. (Low Tech offers an option of being a little cutting edge and getting it at TL4.)

I can't see any actual reason for this. .

Oh, it's worse than that. Characters claims Physician does not exist prior to TL5. Campaigns gives you tables that describes the results of using Physician at all TLs, 1 to 4 included.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Oh, it's worse than that. Characters claims Physician does not exist prior to TL5. Campaigns gives you tables that describes the results of using Physician at all TLs, 1 to 4 included.

Characters says Physician doesn't exist, but is replaced by other skills. It's not saying you can't do what physician does, it's just saying that for some inscrutable reason you can't use Physician's name.