Bloodletting Devices
Fleams and thumb lancets were the primary instruments of the colonial physician. Belief in the four humors dates to ancient medicine when a concept similar to homeostasis was practiced. Draining blood from a patient was intended to balance the system. This was done by an incision or by applying leeches. Our collection holds a ceramic leech jar and a portable pewter leech carrier for house calls. George Washington was the most famous patient to possibly die from overenthusiastic doctors who drained up to five pints at his deathbed. Bleeding as a therapy continued into the 20th century.
Drugs
This colonial expanding medicine chest from Boston contained a small armament of drugs. The most common were purgatives, emetics, opium, mercury, saltpetre, and cinchona bark (quinine). A brass mortar and pestle are a testament to the resourcefulness of early practitioners who compounded their own drugs. American physicians were more successful in applying vaccinations to their people than was the case in European nations. Benjamin Rush, MD, (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) ushered in an era of “heroic medicine” that encouraged enormous dosages of specific drugs to counteract diseases. We have a hand-colored engraved print of a physician administering “A Gentle Emetic” to his trembling patient. Such prints caricaturizing physicians were a common sales item in book stalls.
Books
In the colonial era there were limited opportunities to spread medical knowledge. Medical journals only began around 1800 and there were only a few medical societies in cities where members could hear presentations and discuss cases. Books on medicine were valued for their instruction and could be loaned as a source of continuing medical education. The Siegman Archives has thousands of titles dating from the 1460s through the 19th century. We also hold early student notebooks and theses that would also be retained by practitioners for reference.
Surgical Instruments
This set of surgical knives and case were made in France, and, because of the limitations of the time, the most common surgeries would be only applied to the patient extremities and exposed tumors. In the age before anesthesia, surgeons knew that cutting into the human torso was inadvisable, except in desperate, rare cases.
