Saturday 2 January 2016

Surgical Instruments

The Musée Saint Roch, the former pilgrim hospice in Issoudun, holds a collection of surgical instruments.

An 18th century trepanning kit and 18th and 19th century bone saws for performing amputations. (I hear this type of saw is useful in a butchery emergency too.)
 Syringes (for injecting mercury up the urethra, a treatment for syphilis), bedpans (one for women on the left, men in the middle) and a bloodletting pan (right).
19th century stethescope, tourniquets and a homeopathy kit.
 An 18th century trepanning kit.
 Pap boats from the 16th to 18th centuries, for feeding infants.
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Loire Valley Nature: A new entry has been created for Fly Agaric Amanita muscaria. This is the red and white spotted mushroom of the fairy stories.
A new section for Artist's Bracket Ganoderma lipsiense has been added to the Bracket Fungus Polyporaceae entry. This fungus's English name comes from the way you can do line drawings on the creamy white underside.
Two photos have been added to the Fungi Foray entry, showing a group about to head off into the forest to search for fungi of all sorts, and at the end of the day, fungi being identified.
A new entry for Common Stinkhorn Phallus impudicus has been added. This fungus certainly lives up to its various names.
A new entry for Leafy Brain Tremella foliacea has been added. The specimen I photographed looked just like silicone sealant.

4 comments:

Le Pré de la Forge said...

Susan, in the second picture, only one of the blood letting pans is such...
The one on the left is a lady's bedpan and the one at the back, a gent's!!
The designs haven't changed, they are now made out of cardboard!!

Susan said...

You are undoubtedly right. I took a photo of the label for this exhibit, but there's too much reflection and I can't read most of it, so I just made the caption what I could decipher.

Le Pré de la Forge said...

What I particularly like is that the original design obviously cannot be bettered....
Only the material has!!

Susan said...

I've just realised the syringes must be for administering mercury up the urethra to treat syphillis.

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