Despite the high surgical mortality rate of around 30%, amputation was regularly performed for cases of disease, trauma, and accident. But even if a patient survived the initial shock of feeling their limb being removed or did not bleed to death on the operating table, they were at risk of later dying from infection. Before the advent of anaesthesia in 1846, amputations were performed using a knife and a saw. To prevent blood-loss, the amputation had to be done in under 2 minutes. Until the time of Ambrose Pare (1510-1590) bleeding from the stump was stopped by the application of boiling oil or red hot irons (also known as cauterization). Pare thought that this practice was barbaric and reintroduced the use of a ligature to stop bleeding (a method first used in the 1st century AD). In 1679 James Younge of Plymouth described the technique of making skin flaps to cover the stump and ascribed the method to Lowdham, a surgeon from Exeter. This technique, still used today, was probably first used by the Ancient Greeks.