Terry Dagradi Photo
Fetoscope, mid-20th century; Elliot’s forcepts, 1858; Bedford forceps, 1872
The 17th-century family credited with devising the first forceps to aid in obstructed childbirth kept their invention secret for 100 years.
If back in 1869 you bought instruments for amputation and trepanning of the skull to relieve pressure from a head wound, your skull saw came with a cute little brush to sweep away the bone shards and dust.
Such fascinating, occasionally gruesome, yet close-to-the-bone tidbits of medical history come your way with a visit to “Selections from the Medical Instrument Collection,” a bracing new exhibition at the Yale Medical School library.
It runs through April 1 in the foyer of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library on Cedar Street, and it’s open to the public, although you need to present some sort of photo ID to enter.
The show is helping to mark the library’s 75th anniversary. It provides a sense of how far medicine has come — and how much remains the same.
If you’re a hypochondriac or, like your reporter, a tad squeamish from being the nephew of six doctors who regularly and in detail discussed their cases while flipping blood-red burgers at the family Sunday barbecue … then be warned.
The show has no specimens in formaldehyde-filled beakers. Yet with six large vitrines, ranging from a display of forceps development over a couple of centuries to early 20th century ophthamalogical equipment to kits with early homeopathic cures, the exhibition reminds you both of the delicate balances maintained in the human body’s various organs and systems and also the strength of the skeleton from which all that stuff dangles. Docs during the Civil War were not called sawbones for nothing.
The labeling of the historical equipment, much of which used to belong to New Haven and Bridgeportpractitioners, is also soberingly instructive. Beneath a surgical kit presented to Dr. Willis George Alling from his admirers at the state hospital at New Haven on Dec. 22, 1869: “Trepannation of the skull to expose dura matter was common in an era when head wounds from battle were common.”
In the vitrine dedicated to cure-yourself medicine, you can also check out how widespread homeopathy was. That’s the approach that believes, according to the label copy, “that a drug that causes symptoms of an illness in a healthy person is the ideal medicine to give to a sick one who has similar symptoms (like cures like.)”
It was particularly astonishing to read that as late as 1900, there were 15,000 homeopathic pharmacies in the United States. They went out of fashion after the 1960s, but natural cure practitioners are making a comeback.
As the grandfather of a first grandchild, I took particular note that “chamomilla” is alleged to cure a lot of things, including a baby’s constant desire to be carried; I intend to pass this note along to my daughter.
Also touching in how it opens a window on local history are items in the ophthalmological vitrine. Back in the 1930s, when Dr. Edward N. DeWitt of Bridgeport had to perform a portable vision test, the booklet he showed his patients had printing in both Yiddish, which uses Hebrew letters, and in German.
That certainly tells you a little something about who was seeking glasses.
All of the items in the exhibition are also visible online, as Yale’s collection of more than a thousand medical instruments and artifacts has been digitized.
”Selections from the Medical Instruments Collection” runs through Apr. 1 in the foyer of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, 333 Cedar St.