Instruments

Lane historical collections include close to a thousand medical instruments that have arrived with archival collections and as discrete collections. The instruments depict medical progress in the recent centuries and represent almost every major medical field. They are organized into the following categories.

• General surgical
• Amputation and neurosurgery
• Urology
• Ophthalmic
• OB-GYN
• ENT
• Post mortem and dissection sets
• Anesthesia and dental
• Antiseptics
• Stethoscopes
• Sphygmomanometer
• Scarifiers and bloodletting
• Microscopes
• Syringes
• Electrical apparatus
• Laboratory and diagnosis
• Pharmaceuticals
• Military, horse, and frontier
• Anatomy models
• Functional aids
• Sick room paraphernalia

The oldest instruments, a cupping set and scarifier, date to the late 17th/early 18th century when they were used in bloodletting. The collection also includes a hypodermic kit that purportedly belonged to Oliver Wendell Holmes. Rounding out the wide array of instruments are doctor's bags and field surgical kits.

Bloodletting was a common practice throughout the ages for people in "bad humor." This procedure was used to treat everything from fever and madness to anemia. Bleeding was often performed until the point of faintness. Generally 16-30 ounces were bled. Bloodletting reached its zenith in the 18th and 19th centuries, but had fallen out of favor by the early part of the 20th century.

Cupping brings blood to the skin from deeper sites by creating a vacuum on the skin. A cup of tin, glass, flint, or other material was heated and placed on the skin. As the air inside the cup is heated, a vacuum forms. The metal cups date to the late 17th/early 18th century and are the oldest items in our collection.	Scarification involves making numerous incisions in the skin for the letting of blood. A warm sponge was applied to the chosen area to dilate the capillaries followed by the cutting of a series of parallel incisions with a lancet. A scarifier (also known as a scarificator) could be used in lieu of a lancet. This device shoots out numerous blades at the flip of a lever. Cups and syringes and cup combinations could also be used for more effective bleeding.
Handled suture-carrying needles were used for suturing in deep and difficult to reach areas. A tenaculum (from the Latin tenere, to hold) was used to hold blood vessels for suturing. "In 1807 Charles Bell wrote, "The tenaculum is put into the surgeon's hand during an operation, with the ligature hanging on it...He catches the artery, and pulls it out, and the ligature is brought down towards the vessel by the assistant, and tied." For surgeons working without assistance, Bell recommended that the tenaculum's curve should be a full half-circle with a heavy handle to retract the artery by gravity alone."(John Kirkup, The Evolution of surgical instruments , p.220.)	This set of postmortem instruments includes scissors, chain retractors, a chisel, forceps, scalpels, and probes. Some of the scalpels and the probe have ivory handles. Manufacturers include Hernstein and Tiemann.
These models of skulls, vertebrae and sacrum, and a brain are teaching tools. One skull is hinged and wired to allow it to be examined with respect to all sinuses and fossae. Another skull has vessels and foramen clearly marked. The vertebrae and sacrum are connected with thread and were made in Germany. And the brain was designed for study of the internal structure.	This cutaway model of a head is a teaching tool for study of the muscles and nerves. It was manufactured by H. Windler, Berlin.
These items belonged to James Oliver Greenwell, a member of the Stanford School of Medicine's class of 1936. Greenwell was the resident physician at Canyon Sanatorium of San Mateo County. Canyon was founded in 1916 as a private sanatorium and purchased by the county in 1941. It served as a "county sanatorium for all stages of tuberculosis in any form," but was limited to residents of the county. The instruments include a Bausch & Lomb ophthalmoscope with 4 head fixtures and case, a stethoscope, and a blood pressure cuff.	This late 19th century general surgical set includes a tourniquet, hand retractors, a hand chain saw, a Hey's saw, a frame saw, a trephine, a bullet extractor, and several other small surgical instruments. A trephine is a cylindrical saw most often used to bore a hole in the skull. This Hey's saw has one straight blade and the second blade is curved; the Hey's saw was also usually used on the skull. The chain saw consists of serrated links with handles to attach on each end; it was originally developed for use in easing difficult childbirth, but it was also used for amputations as so many of the instruments in this set were.