![]() “Under the microscope, you could see the obsidian scalpel had divided individual cells in half, and next to it, the steel scalpel incision looked like it had been made by a chainsaw.” As soon as he turned around, everyone in the studio was like ‘Ohhh,’ ” Green said. “It wasn’t hard to tell the difference at all. The host of the program was then invited to look at the cuts under a video microscope and tell the difference. Using cultured-skin burn dressing, a substance composed of skin cells, he made an incision with a modern scalpel and a parallel incision with an obsidian scalpel. Green said he once helped documentary makers produce a program on surgical technology in ancient Egyptian, setting up a blind test on the cutting power of obsidian. Obsidian, meanwhile, cleaves into a fine and continuous edge when properly cut. He explained that steel scalpels at a microscopic level have a rough cutting edge that tears into tissue, a function of the crystals that make up the metal. ![]() “It makes for the best cosmetic outcome.” “The biggest advantage with obsidian is that it is the sharpest edge there is, it causes very little trauma to tissue, it heals faster, and more importantly, it heals with less scarring,” he said. Were mystery holes in skulls an ancient aspirin? Scholars can't explain the purpose behind the mysterious, multiple openings. Healed bone around the edge of the holes indicates the patient was alive during the surgery and likely survived. Lee Green, professor and chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta, says he routinely uses obsidian blades.Īn ancient surgeon in Peru likely used a sharp tool to carefully groove the perfect circles in this Incan skull. When you consider that most household razor blades are 300 to 600 angstroms, obsidian can still cut it with the sharpest materials nanotechnology can produce.Įven today, a small number of surgeons are using an ancient technology to carry out fine incisions that they say heal with minimal scarring.ĭr. Obsidian – a type of volcanic glass – can produce cutting edges many times finer than even the best steel scalpels.Īt 30 angstroms – a unit of measurement equal to one hundred millionth of a centimeter – an obsidian scalpel can rival diamond in the fineness of its edge. It could even have been a form of emergency surgery for battle wounds.īut while there is still conjecture about the real reasons behind the mysterious procedure, what is known is that the implement often used to carry out the primitive surgery was made from one of the sharpest substances found in nature: obsidian. In Neolithic times, trepanation – or drilling a hole into the skull – was thought to be a cure for everything from epilepsy to migraines. ![]() I believe that it is still available in scalpel blades though and has proven very useful in things like eye surgery – obsidian scalpels however aren’t approved in the US by the FDA for use in human surgery.Ever had a headache so big, you felt like drilling a hole in your head to let the pain out? So sharpness in a knife isn’t everything, an obsidian knife while incredibly sharp, just wouldn’t stand up to the wear and tear put on it in daily use. So I’m going to use a compromise, a steel that can take a good edge (though no-where near as sharp as obsidian) that will take a lot of punishment (though no-where near as much as CPM10V) but that will be comparatively easy to keep sharp by steeling as I work, something like O1 that is still fairly tough, but very easy to keep sharp. If I was using, for example, a CPM10V steel bladed knife I could probably chop my way through the cutting board and still have a usably sharp blade at the end of it! The only thing is CPM10V is so tough that sharpening it once it does get blunt is a major PITA. Now obsidian knives are sharpened by Knapping so I’m going to have to stop what I’m doing to take an hour or two to re-sharpen my knife. Eventually my once perfectly sharp edge is going to be ragged, chipped and blunt. If my knife had an obsidian edge I might find it great for slicing some tuna, say, for sashimi, but the minute I start chopping some veg against a hard maple cutting board I’m going to start chipping the edge. At one end of the scale are extremely sharp blades such as obsidian, at the other there are steels such as the CPM series which are extremely tough and resistant to wear. Sharpness versus toughness.Ī typical working kitchen knife has to handle quite a lot, from fine slicing to hard chopping. There’s a trade-off in knife blade materials.
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