You know the phrase "I'd rather stick needles in my eyes"? It had a bit more literal meaning back in third century India. In the ancient sanskrit medical text Sushruta Samhita, a procedure for removing cataracts is described, in which a curved needle is pushed into the eyeball and through the cataract in order to push the clouded lens downwards and restore The text then goes on to describe how the patient then blows the cataract out of his nose, before washing the eyeball in breast milk and sending them on their merry way. Despite resembling a scene from Saw, this method, known as "couching" was widely practised all over the world in one form or another and is generally considered to be the earliest example of surgery on record.
