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| This scarce earlier 1800’s through Civil War era medical instrument measures approximately 9.25 inches in length and is fashioned from highly figured cocobolo rosewood and horn. The instrument remains in fine functional condition down to it’s inner workings of surgical steel needles and coil spring. Referred to in medical text as a vesicating (blistering) instrument, back in the days of bleeding and other such cures it was thought that raising a blister or blistering and drawing off the resulting fluid was thought, if not a total cure, a worthwhile treatment of all manner of malady from gonorrhea to cholera. (A handy instrument for the well armed Army surgeon to be sure!) The general description offered by Chas. Truax in his nineteenth century reference The Mechanics of Surgery (see illustration) advises that the instrument consists of a cylinder with hollow handle. Inside the cylinder is a piston, controlled by a heavy internal spiral spring. The piston is fitted with surgical needles which are protected when not in use by a screw off cover. Once the instrument is in place with the cylinder held to the target area, the spring loaded protruding shaft (handle) at the rear of the instrument is pulled straight back and released driving the needles into the affected area. Truax recommends that the points of the needles first be dipped into an oil mixture to promote the blistering. A scarce early medical instrument for any period doctor’s bag, this piece would make an attention getting living history show and tell. please note: Experienced collectors may recognize an example of this instrument mistakenly identified as a scarificator (bleeding device) in Dammann’s Civil War Medical Instruments & Equipment. A testimony to how uncommon this vesicating instrument really is. |
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