A call for Midievil scholasticism

[darklordmoeser]

So I was thinking about Braveheart, and how one of the characters got hit with an arrow, and he had it pulled out and cauterized with a burning brand.  I've seen this a fair bit, along with people pouring spirits on their wounds, and I had to wonder, did people really know to use hot irons or alcohol to clean wounds before germ theory?  Especially

Comments

[ignescent]

don't know about the middle ages, but in general, folks tended to cauterize wounds to stop bleeding as much as they did to sterilize.

[zihuatanejo]

Within the medical community, it was suggested that you clean your hands before doing surgery, but that was about as close to sterilization as they got.