![]() It is formed as an extrusive igneous rock and was used in the past in cutting and piercing tools. Interestingly, Stone Age blades are still used for cutting in modern surgery. Believe it or not, but the sharpest knives produced lately are mounted with stone flakes made of obsidian. A handful of surgeons are benefiting themselves by using them for fine incisions that they say heal with minimal scarring.ĭr. Lee Green, professor and chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta, confirmed using obsidian blades on regular basis for removing moles and repairing torn earlobes. “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,” says Green. Well-crafted obsidian blades made out of black volcanic glass has a cutting edge 100 times sharper and unbelievably smoother under an electron microscope as compared to the high-quality steel surgical scalpels and metal knives with jagged blades. ![]() At 30 angstroms - a unit of measurement equal to one hundred millionth of a centimeter - an obsidian scalpel can beat diamond in the fineness of its edge. “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” “It is very sharp and very smooth at the microscopic level.” Green said. While the Stone Age blade does the job very efficiently, it is not for everyone as using it requires high level of expertise and cautiousness. Obsidian scalpels are also very expensive as compared to steel scalpels and can be extremely brittle if lateral forces are applied. They are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA as the blade is very thin, surgeons must be careful to only cut soft tissues as scraping a bone could result in breakage which may leave obsidian flakes inside the patient. Nevertheless, this special type of volcanic glass can also be used as an alternative material for surgical scalpel blades for patients who are allergic to steel or metal. “For studies where trace metals from ordinary scalpel blades cannot be tolerated, these very special obsidian scalpels may provide the answer,” says the obsidian manufacturing company from Germany. Research also confirms that incisions carried out with obsidian produce narrower scars and fewer inflammatory cells. And ultimately, it could be possible to 3D print reinforced obsidian or something even better.This is because on cellular level, obsidian knife cuts between cells rather than tearing it in case of a steel knife, hence, a sharper cut allows the wound to heal more easily with negligible scarring.When Bruce Dahlin underwent lung surgery here in early December, the operation, while under the most modern conditions, contained an echo from the age of the ancient Aztecs.Īt Dahlin's request, the surgeon made his first cut with a scalpel fashioned from obsidian, a rocky glass from volcanoes that the Aztecs used to make knives and razors.ĭahlin is the first human operated on as the result of an unusual research project that weds modern medicine with archeology and its study of the distant past.įirmon E. And with AI, they could be robotically napped (though that will only raise the price – with low quantities, building a “flint-napping” robot with AI software would cost more to build than building a human). With more interest pushing more experimentation, perhaps a way to reinforce them will be invented. No doubt as interest in obsidian scalpels increases, there will be more research in design and manufacture, and the best design(s) become standard. What would happen with something sharp in the body that couldn’t be enveloped in scar tissue? Hopefully more research will be performed, including on how to monitor for breakage, and find and retrieve them. Indeed, I’m kinda curious what an ultra-sharp obsidian edge would do if left in, since the finest obsidian edges supposedly don’t leave scars. It’s not a matter of if it will happen, but how often. Even the cheapest steel blade is unlikely to break even if a surgeon tried to do it. Still, even at the same price point, they are available with what appears to be a more stable design.īut you’ve got a good point.
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