From the August 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The picture and description appear courtesy of Dr. M. Donald Blaufox, M.D., Ph.D, from his website: www.mohma.org.
Each month we visit Dr. Blaufox’s Museum of Historical Medical Artifacts to take a look back at the medical equipment that cleared the way for what patients encounter in doctors’ offices and operating rooms of today. Some equipment may be recognizable, while other inventions featured here have since become obsolete or have had their usefulness discredited.
Category: Infection
Estimated Date: 1870
Name: Drainage set
Description: This drainage set contains a five-inch-long brass syringe with cotton wrapped plunger; five-inch, simple nickel plated forceps. The set also contains three steel trocars each five-inches — one standard with silver drainage shield, one with corkscrew-like end for removing pus, one with wheel on one screw to adjust depth. Two have black ebony checkered handles with the corkscrew having a smooth un-checkered handle. The set is all contained in a six, by four by one-and-a-half inch black box.
At a time when treatment for chronic infection was limited to surgery and relatively ineffective procedures, drainage was an important part of therapy. Chronic suppuration occurred in many situations and care was frequently palliative.
