Medical Museum

The next museum is a little smaller. It is a collection of old medical and surgical artifacts that I have collected over the years. Most of it fits in this display coffee table in the living room. It has been the source of many an interesting conversation. The articles often get taken out and passed around, making it a "hands on" museum experience.............

....this contraption is called a tonsil guillotine. You simply insert this gizmo into the patients mouth and grab the tonsil through the square hole, pulling it into the hole. Then you fire it, and a blade chops off the tonsil like a guillotine chops of a head. Fascinating. It is often done under local anesthesia (although not if I am the patient)..........

....This is a Shiotz Tenometer. It is used to measure the pressure in the eyeball. Nowadays, they use a machine that uses a puff of air and measures the deflection of the eye to calculate the pressure. Thistenometer is like a tiny scale. The eye is presses into it, deflecting a spring and giving a measurement of the pressure in the eye..............

....an old ground glass syringe. All syringes are now plastic and rubber and disposable..........

....the plastic is fine, but has none of the romance of this old beauty with the 6 inch needle. Lovely??..........

....this is a Peyer clamp, used for holding the stomach as it is sewn. These old instruments were so beautiful in their craftsmanship and almost artistic design. The clamp is open............

....this is closed................

 ....this is a mask for an inhaled anesthetic, usually ether.  The mask holds a rough cloth, like cheesecloth, and ether is dripped on to it while it is place over your mouth and nose.  Enough oxygen is delivered as you are still breathing air, but mixed with the vaporized ether at the same time. Ether was extremely simple, easy to make, very cheap, and very, very good as an anesthetic.  It creates muscle relaxation, loss of consciousness, sustains breathing, supports cardiac function, wipes out your memory, deadens pain, all the characteristics of a perfect agent.  The only drawback?  It explodes with the tiniest spark and can kill everyone in the room, but always the patient.  Still, it was so perfect otherwise that it lasted 60-70 years into the 70's in some places.  Just an occasional........BOOM!!...........

Uncle Hans