Just The Gist of… The King Who Had a 3-Hour Surgery Without Anesthesia episode artwork

EPISODE · Jan 14, 2026 · 46 MIN

Just The Gist of… The King Who Had a 3-Hour Surgery Without Anesthesia

from Just The Gist

Totally awake. No pain relief. Just straight up raw-dogging surgery. In 1686, King Louis XIV's anal fistula got so bad that he needed to go under the knife. But surgery for an anal fistula didn't actually exist yet. In fact, surgery in general didn’t really exist at all. Enter Charles-François Felix, a 'Barber Surgeon' willing to take on the task. King Louis let Felix spend 6 months ‘practicing’ on inmates from the city’s prison, until he had perfected the procedure (or at least managed to perform it once without killing the guy). Once Charles-François Felix was ready to go, all ‘The Sun King’ had to do next was close his eyes, clench his fists, and stay completely still through a three hour anal surgery, the results of which changed the entire course of modern medicine. We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there's Breakin' Nooz, JTG After Show AND Bonus eps! You can access them by joining the Gistener Club via the Just The Gist Patreon or Apple Premium Subscriptions.Watch Just The Gist episodes on Youtube @JustTheGistPodcastFollow Just The Gist on Instagram and TikTok @JustTheGistPodcastFollow Rosie in all the places at @RosieWaterlandWant to give us a SuGISTion? Tell Rosie to stop singing so much? Email us at [email protected] Just The Gist is a Just The Network production. Executive Producer and Host: Rosie Waterland | Senior Producer and Editor: James Joseph | Producer: Kate Leaver | Additional production support: Hayley Staveley | Acast Legends: Guy Scott-Wilson and Simon McDermott | Production Assistant: PocketDon't forget to follow and give us 5 stars, which means something apparently!Thank you, as always, for Gistening. Now go say something impressive at a dinner party..A quick, visual (don't worry - animated!) explanation of how anal fistulas work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOwqcoel_g  Some articles:https://tidsskriftet.no/2016/08/sun-kings-anal-fistula  https://medium.com/omgfacts/when-anal-fistulas-were-all-the-rage-281aclfd2d52 https://www.iflscience.com/that-time-the-kings-anus-changed-surgery-forever-65310 https://hekint.org/2019/10/31/it-is-good-to-be-the-king-the-french-surgical-revolution/ https://historycollection.com/seven-worst-surgeries-modern-times/4/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Just The Gist of… The King Who Had a 3-Hour Surgery Without Anesthesia

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