The Worst Possible Use for a Chainsaw. Ever.

The origins of this tool are far more horrifying than anything you'd see in a movie

The Samuel J. Bens Endless Chain Saw patent application, 1906

Hurricane Helene felled 21 trees on our property, resulting in an epic chainsaw massacre in the following days. In slaughtering all that timber, Chuck’s chainsaw ran out of fuel, so he ran to Ace Hardware for some more chainsaw juice. There, the sales clerk offered to remove the chain and sharpen it for just $10. Yes, please.

For such a good tool, chainsaws have a bad reputation, mainly because of horror movies. Best known is the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” series of films, the first of which came out in 1974. Since then, bloody chainsaws have made frequent appearances on TV, in cartoons, anime and in videogames.

But here’s the weird part. The origins of the chainsaw are far more horrifying than anything you’d get in a movie.

You see, the first chainsaws were used on women during childbirth.

Around 1783-85, two Scottish doctors, John Aitken and James Jeffray, invented a tool that could perform a symphysiotomy, a procedure in which the mother’s pelvis is widened to ease the passage of a baby through the birth canal. The design of the chainsaw was based on a watch chain, but with fine, serrated teeth. The doctor moved the “saw” back and forth with his hands to cut through the pelvic bone faster and more accurately than he could have with a sharp knife, according to a description in a 2004 paper in the Scottish Medical Journal.

Mechanized versions of the saw came on the scene later.

Happily for women, someone figured out that lumberjacks and chainsaws made a good match. In 1906, That’s when Samuel J. Bens of West Coast Machinery applied for the patent for his invention, the Endless Chain Saw.