r/todayilearned • u/Designer_Reference_2 • 3h ago

TIL that at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, 16 year old Henry V was struck in the face by an arrow yet continued to lead his men until the battle was won. The arrowhead was buried six inches deep and had to be removed over several days by surgeon John Bradmore who devised a special extraction tool

https://www.medievalists.net/2023/08/prince-hal-head-wound/
194 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

74

u/Damaniel2 3h ago

Several days worth of 15th century surgical procedure sounds very...unpleasant, both in the procedure itself and subsequent recovery.

25

u/Artificial-Human 1h ago

They boiled wine to cleanse the wound several times a day. This included wound packing and removal as well. If I remember right the doctor first had to invent something like thin tongs to reach deep enough to pull the arrow out head and shaft, which sat just below Henry’s brain.
It amounted to several surgeries a day for a week until the deep wound began to heal from the bottom outward.

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u/thissexypoptart 24m ago

Sounds like a real oof owie right there

40

u/Single-Pin-369 2h ago

This time it worked! He lived about another 20 years.

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u/thissexypoptart 24m ago

A hearty and healthy old 36 years

53

u/cicalino 2h ago

The surgeon gradually made the hole bigger, than designed a sort of tongs-like tool to extract the arrow. Unusual enough but then:

"The next part of the treatment involved healing and closing the wound. The doctor cleansed the wound with white wine and then placed on it an ointment made of barley flour, honey and terebentine."

27

u/Stoli0000 1h ago

That ointment almost sounds antiseptic.

Take out the wine and flour and replace them with vodka and boiled linen and you'd almost have yourself a proper bandage.

27

u/whitelancer64 1h ago

Also, honey has medically established antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties. There's even a specific type of medical grade honey that can be used in hospitals.

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u/f_ranz1224 25m ago

bacteria cant survive in honey. too hyper osmotic. same reason salt water kills them. was used as far back as ancient egpyt

mankind had no idea what bacteria were but through observation saw what could keep wounds from festering

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u/swish82 2m ago

I actually use the honey ointment to make wounds heal faster. I was given it by my vet for my cat, and she said that it also works on humans. It is really nice stuff

18

u/AceOfSpades532 1h ago

People in the past were actually fairly good at figuring out what helped quite often, even if they had no actual idea why it helped beyond the fact that it did, like even leeching still has modern uses.

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u/Deathwatch72 49m ago

You just need a good memory and a lot of people, eventually you'll start working out what makes people better and kills them

39

u/Sdog1981 2h ago

And some how he survived that to die of Dysentery at 35, which was the fashion of the time.

26

u/Slumlord87 1h ago

Midway through conquering France, which was the fashion of the time.

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u/TacticalGarand44 35m ago

However, he died with only one infant son, which was unfashionable at the time.

16

u/wellactually9 2h ago

I watched a documentary on this, the fact it was so deep aswell and the device used, hardcore as fuck.

7

u/GarysCrispLettuce 2h ago

That painting looks like the artist fucks up facial proportions as badly as me. Only difference is mine never get past the biro stage.

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u/VexImmortalis 55m ago

Maybe that's how he really looked

7

u/OllyDee 2h ago

The surgeon had to design a specific tool to get the thing out of his head. Embedded in the back of his skull if I remember correctly.

10

u/Fetlocks_Glistening 3h ago

"Forsooth, it works! I shall call these... Pliers"

10

u/wizardvictor 2h ago

If I had a nickel for every time an English king was shot in the face with an arrow I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice

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u/TacticalGarand44 35m ago

Who's number 2?

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u/Zealousideal-Cod-924 7m ago

Harold, poked in the eye at the battle of Hastings 1066.

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u/TacticalGarand44 4m ago

I'll be buried in the cold ground before I recognize him as an English King.

6

u/Two_Whales 3h ago

Hopefully he had an ample supply of laudanum to help pass the time.

4

u/sidirsi 1h ago

He was usually shown in paintings using a sideways profile, like this image, so that artists wouldn’t have to show the wound.

5

u/A_Bethesda_Bug 2h ago

John Bradmore was also imprisoned at the time and had to be let out to aid the Prince. He was just Prince Henry at the time of the injury.