TABLE OF CONTENTS In the last chapter, having considered the development of surgical instruments in the light of the materials available at the time, and having regard to the requirements of the surgical procedures to be undertaken we became aware of the extent to which the frontiers of surgical capability were being pushed back by new developments in a variety of different disciplines. These included physics, engineering and chemistry, all of which led to the development of machines and instruments which were capable of carrying out tasks with greater precision, and on a smaller scale than had hitherto been envisaged.
These are sensational achievements, and the rate of advance over the last few years has been quite breathtaking; in fact some of the surgical techniques which I have described earlier in the book have, during the writing, become modified, or extended, by the development of new techniques and procedures. Some of these we shall consider later in this chapter. It would, I think, also be appropriate to "peer round the corner" in order to see if we can forecast what other advances there are likely to be in materials, and their consequences for medical applications. We shall also look at some of the exciting new developments in the field of natural materials and polymers.
Among other topics I want to consider, are surgical interventions on a very small scale, the increasing use of robotics, and the exciting new world of nanotechnology (one thousand millionth of a metre) in which we can literally tailor-make...
