Ancient Surgical Tools Found in China May Hold the Earliest Chemical Evidence of Anesthesia
The sampled instruments and the residues analysed on each one. Credit: Antiquity, 2026. A new study of two 600-year-old surgical tools from a Ming Dynasty tomb in eastern China has identified probable residues of aconitine, a powerful and dangerous compound found in wolfsbane. The finding may be the earliest direct chemical evidence of a topical…