Chainsaws Were Originally Invented to Help Deliver Babies
Long before power tools were used in lumberyards, two Scottish surgeons in the late 18th century designed a flexible, hand-cranked saw with small teeth to perform symphysiotomies. This surgical procedure involved cutting through bone and cartilage to widen the pelvis during difficult childbirths. The device made bone removal faster and less painful for patients before the widespread use of anesthesia.
The Dangerous Dilemma of Obstructed Labor
In the eighteenth century, severe complications during childbirth presented medical practitioners with limited and dangerous choices. When a fetus became trapped in the birth canal due to a narrow pelvis, the survival of both mother and infant was at immediate risk. Cesarean sections were rarely performed, as surgical techniques and infection control were primitive, leading to extremely high rates of maternal mortality.
To resolve obstructed labor without resorting to a perilous full abdominal operation, physicians sometimes performed a symphysiotomy. This surgical intervention involved cutting through the cartilage and adjacent bone of the pubic symphysis to widen the pelvic outlet, allowing the infant to pass through. However, carrying out this procedure with standard surgical knives or rigid hand saws was slow, technically difficult, and extraordinarily traumatic for the patient, who had to endure the procedure without modern anesthesia.
Scottish Surgeons and the First Flexible Saw
During the 1780s, two Scottish medical practitioners, John Aitken and James Jeffray, sought to improve surgical efficiency and reduce tissue trauma during bone excision and pelvic procedures. Aitken detailed a specialized flexible saw in his surgical and obstetrical writings, creating an instrument specifically intended for dividing bone in confined anatomical spaces.
Their innovation was a flexible chain equipped with fine, sharp cutting teeth on its links, joined together by small pins. Instead of requiring a physician to move a rigid blade back and forth across an open surgical site, this chain could be threaded behind or around a bone. The surgeon held handles at either end of the flexible chain, pulling it alternately back and forth to cut through bone and cartilage quickly from the inside out.