Great Moment # 76

5300 years ago, the mysterious Copper Age people of the Swiss Alps developed a tattoo technique to treat arthritis pain. Though the permanently inked-in skin designs did nothing to relieve suffering, and were, in fact, completely based on preposterous superstition -- they were a pioneering effort in the field of body art, to which today we owe such an aesthetic debt.

Great Moment # 101

The oldest surviving diagram of the interior organ arrangement of the human body dates from approximately 800 B.C. It was found in a remote part of Papua New Guinea. The drawing is rather primitive, etched with ochre and mud onto some sort of hide. Sadly, the ancient people of this region were cannibalistic. The diagram was not made for medical purposes, but rather as the equivalent of a butcher's chart. It denotes the choicest morsels and describes which organs are better suited for stew.

Great Moment #342

On this day in 1674, Johannes Gruber performed the first modern cataract surgery with a cutlass, a snuff-box, and a wooden mallet. The operation was considered successful as the patient lived, though both eyes had to be replaced with petrified grapes.