Before the advent of printing, breviaries were written by hand and were often richly decorated with initials and miniature illustrations telling stories in the lives of Christ or the saints, or stories from the Bible.

Before the advent of rock and roll, concept albums had their original heyday in jazz of the early to mid ' 50s with artists such as Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, the latter of whom would record numerous concept albums for Capitol throughout the last half of the ' 50s such as In the Wee Small Hours, Come Fly with Me, Where Are You?

Before the advent of fast computing machines, solving a dynamical system required sophisticated mathematical techniques and could be accomplished only for a small class of dynamical systems.

Before the advent of government-funded public schools, the primary mode of education for those of the lower classes was the charity school, pioneered during the 19th century by Protestant organizations and adapted for use by the Roman Catholic Church and governmental bodies.

Before the advent of computer filter synthesis tools, graphical tools such as Bode plots and Nyquist plots were extensively used as design tools.

Before the advent of machine tools, metal was worked manually using the basic hand tools of hammers, files, scrapers, saws and chisels.

Before the advent of modern computers numerical methods often depended on hand interpolation in large printed tables.

Before the advent of copyright, anonymous and pseudonymous publication was a common practice in the sixteenth century publishing world, and a passage in the Arte of English Poesie ( 1589 ), the leading work of literary criticism of the Elizabethan period and an anonymously published work itself, mentions in passing that literary figures in the court who wrote " commendably well " circulated their poetry only among their friends, " as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned " ( Book 1, Chapter 8 ).

Before the advent of wax candles in the 14th century, this office was said in the dark or with minimal lighting ; and monks were expected to memorise everything.

Before the advent of direct-dialed long distance calls, a subscriber would need to contact the long-distance operator in order to place a toll call.

Before the advent of the pocket calculator, it was the most commonly used calculation tool in science and engineering.

Before the advent of the British, no empire based in mainland India had controlled any part of what now makes up the country's Northeast, part of the reason for the ongoing insurgency in Northeast India.

Before the advent of modern antibiotics, oil of thyme was used to medicate bandages.

Before the advent of the touchpad, small trackballs were common on portable computers, where there may be no desk space on which to run a mouse.

" Before the advent of Islam, the city was known as Yathrib but was personally renamed by Muhammad.

Before the advent of the CCD beam profiler, the beam width was estimated using the knife-edge technique: slice a laser beam with a razor and measure the power of the clipped beam as a function of the razor position.

Before the advent of DVD and Blu-ray, the Video CD ( abbreviated as VCD, and also known as View CD, Compact Disc digital video ) became the first format for distributing films on standard 120 mm optical discs.

Before the advent of artificial refrigeration, Madeira wine was particularly prized in areas where it was impractical to construct wine cellars ( as in parts of the southern United States ) because, unlike many other fine wines, it could survive being stored over hot summers without significant damage.

Before the advent of VLSI devices, TTL integrated circuits were a standard method of construction for the processors of mini-computer and mainframe processors ; such as the DEC VAX and Data General Eclipse, and for equipment such as machine tool numerical controls, printers and video display terminals.

Before the advent of modern pipes, water was brought from an outdoor source such as wells, pumps or springs.

Before the advent of disk operating systems and the ability to record large data files, core dumps were paper printouts of the contents of memory, typically arranged in columns of octal or hexadecimal numbers ( a " hex dump "), sometimes accompanied by their interpretations as machine language instructions, text strings, or decimal or floating-point numbers ( cf.

Before the advent of the modern critical edition of historical Roman works, AUC was indiscriminately added to them by earlier editors, making it appear more widely used than it actually was.

Before the advent of the codex ( book ), Latin and Greek script was written on scrolls.

Before the advent of radio, carrier pigeons were frequently used on the battlefield as a means for a mobile force to communicate with a stationary headquarters.

Before operating, he stimulated the brain with electrical probes while the patients were conscious on the operating table ( under only local anesthesia ), and observed their responses.

Before 1980, four fetal deaths were reported with ECV, all of which involved general anesthesia.

Before the development of anesthesia and antisepsis, surgery was limited to fractures, dislocations, traumatic injuries resulting in amputation, and urinary disorders or other common infections.

Before the end of HST, the examination of Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons ( FRCS ) must be taken in general surgery plus the subspeciality.

Before surgery or at the onset of childbirth, blood was removed to prevent inflammation.

The album Home Before Dark was written during Farley's struggles with severe chronic back pain, surgery and ongoing recovery.

Before the Middle Ages, it was used as an anesthetic for surgery ; the ancient Romans used it as a poison ( the wife of Emperor Augustus and the wife of Claudius both used it to murder contemporaries ); and predating this, it was used to make poison-tipped arrows.

Before its withdrawal, aprotinin was used in some forms of major surgery to decrease bleeding risk and need for blood products.

Before his surgery, John had won 124 games.

Before the surgery, the patient's corneas are examined with a pachymeter to determine their thickness, and with a topographer, or corneal topography machine, to measure their surface contour.

Before Jeremy reached the age of two he was frequently hospitalised and had undergone surgery for Poland syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that stunted growth in his right hand.

Before surgery Bradford was a skilled machinist, but upon gaining vision, he became confused and unable to work.

Before the 1999 season, Wetteland underwent elbow surgery.

Before surgery every aspect of the shoulder needs to be taken into account.

Before surgery, the tumor resided close to the bone in the right ring finger and was not visible externally.

Before having played a single game for the club, he suffered a groin injury and had to undergo surgery.

Before the revolution, she had longed to become physically female but could not afford surgery.

Before the surgery, he administered an oral anesthetic potion, probably dissolved in wine, in order to induce a state of unconsciousness and partial neuromuscular blockade.

Before the surgery could be performed, however, doctors discovered another lymphatic mass.

Before he had open-heart surgery, President George W. Bush invited Baier and his wife and son to the Oval Office for a visit and had the White House physician update him on Paul's progress.

Before the season, he had surgery on his left wrist, and was not ready for opening day.

Before the surgery, he says to Jack that, regarding the findings of his father's coffin, he hopes it brings him peace.