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Posted: November 19th, 2008 by Pam Rose
INSTRUMENTS
Thanks to the continuing generosity of Mrs. Annette Cravens, the Edgar McGuire Historical Medical Instrument Collection was further enriched by the addition of a number of fascinating instruments and artifacts.
Dettweiler’s sputum flask – A German sputum pot for patients with consumption.
Assalini forceps made from steel with a crosshatched ivory handle. The instrument is signed Ferguson 21 Giltspur Street London.
Gigli Saw (early 20th century) used for craniotomy. Three holes were drilled in the skull with the trephine and the flexible wire saw was passed under the skull and sawn through to remove a triangle of bone.
Southey’s Trocar Set Used to drain peripheral oedema from the ankle or the leg. Invented by Henry Herbert Southey (1783 -1865) sometimes referred to as Southey tubes this trocar contains 4 silver perforated cannulae in the handle compartment so that another was readily available when it was needed to leave one inserted in the body for drainage purposes. (Seen on page 178 of Elisabeth Bennion’s Antique Medical Instruments) One such purpose would have been for the drainage of peripheral oedema in the ankle, leg or even the vulva.
Three 19th century glass infant feeding bottles
Mathieu surgical stitching instrument (cased)
Chartroule tuberculosis treatment device
BOOKS
Christian Friedrich Daniel. Commentatio de infantum nuper umbilico et pulmonibus. 1780
The first edition of a comprehensive study of forensic methods of detecting infanticide. The first part surveys methods of analyzing the umbilical cord to determine cause of death in newborns. The second part is devoted to a discussion of the hydrostatic lung test, first proposed by Johann Scheyer in 1689, based upon Swammerdam’s discovery twenty years earlier, that the lungs of newborns will float on water if respiration has taken place. Daniel was a physician at Halle who wrote several books on forensic medicine.
Joannes Christianus Heyne. Tentamen cheirurgico-medicum, de praecipuis ossium morbis. 1705
The first edition of a very early treatise on the practice of orthopedic surgery by a physician specializing in diseases of the bones. Among many subjects, Heyne describes bone inflammations, abscesses, ulcers, spina ventosa and rickets.
(bound with)
Jacopo Berengario da Carpi. De fractura cranii liber aureus. 1629
An early edition of the author’s great work on skull fractures in which he groups the consequent lesions according to their symptoms. He here observes the relationship between the location of the lesions and the resulting neurological effects. Berengario was the greatest of the pre-Vesalian anatomists.
Petition of the Medical faculty of the University of the City of New-York to the honorable the Senate and Assembly of the State of New-York for the legalization of anatomy.
(bound with)
John Draper, MD. An introductory lecture, delivered at the opening of the Medical Department of the University, for session 1853-4, and entitled An appeal to the people of the State of New York, to legalize the dissection of the dead. 1853
The Robert L. Brown History
of Medicine Collection was established as a separate
entity in 1972. The collection
was named in 1985 for Robert L. Brown, MD, former Associate Dean of the School of Medicine, in recognition of his strong support of the Health Sciences Library for more than twenty-five years. 
"The Tools of Medicine" exhibit, which opened on November 19, 2003, features images of selected instruments contained in the the Edgar R. McGuire Historical Medical Instrument Collection. The exhibit features 6 enlarged, framed images mounted in the main staircase area on the first floor of HSL.
