Medical Instruments
Tools for the practice of Medicine.
Contents
Surgical Tools
Curette
The curette is used to take medical scrapings from within body cavities, and for stirring medical mixtures.
Spatula Probe
The Spatula-Probe consists of a long shaft with an olivary point at one end and a spatula at the other. It is a pharmaceutical rather than a strictly surgical instrument. The olive end is used for stirring medicaments, the spatula for spreading them on the affected part. Artists working in oil paints utilize the same instrument for mixing coloured paints.
Scalpel
Scalpels are knives of high sharpness, used to make incisions through the skin in surgeries, and for other cutting of flesh. A sharp edge is known to be key here, for it makes a more perfected cut, and that perfection rejects complications as a perfected soul rejects sin. Where they can be obtained, eversharp knives are ideal for this purpose, but most scalpels are crafted of Obsidian.
Uvula Forceps
Instrument used to crush the uvula, preventing haemorrhage before cutting it off with a scalpel. This is done both as a treatment for infections or inflammations, or to reduce snoring. Some tribes in the southern Threshold amputate a child’s uvula as a preventative measure (a custom, unknown to nearly all, originating in the medical programs of the Golden Age), though their more primitive methods sometimes result in severe complications.
Barber’s Scissors
Rarely used for cutting tissue, due to most lacking a fin enough edge, these are primarily for cutting hair.
Meat Scissors
Heavier duty scissors often used to cut strips of meat for grilling, this tool is also used to slice open flesh and muscle so that a surgeon can access what lies beneath. This tends to be an emergency measure, as while the scissors are often of good quality they still cause damage to the body far in excess of that a scalpel would inflict, leaving higher chance of infection.
Epilation Forceps
Tool used primarily for the removal of individual hairs, a rather painful process especially in certain body hair areas. Body hair is often seen as uncivilized in the Realm, and Dynasts will go to great lengths to see it removed and their skin smoothed... however, some reject this practice entirely for its decadence.
Obstetrical Hooks
Double-ended ‘needles’: the blunt for dissecting and raising blood; the sharp for seizing and raising small pieces of tissue for excision and for fixing and retracting the edges of wounds.
Catheter
http://carlos.emory.edu/ODYSSEY/gif-still/Buff_horn.gif
Hollow animal horn used to drain fluid from the anus, or inject water for manual flushing. It may also see use in draining fluids from the bladder... for male patients this is particularly uncomfortable given the tip of the horn must be inserted deeply to reach its target.
Cautery
A tool with a sharpened, shovelhead end. This is used sometimes as a scalpel instrument, but more often is heated to cauterize open wounds, or used to dig out tumers or other abnormalities.
Clyster
Injection device to deliver liquid up the anus (enema). Popular treatment for constipation, stomach aches, and bowel pains. Some Dynasts and patricians enjoy the use of these tools to administer narcotics-based enemas, and smoke from certain plants is injected as a treatment for fainting spells.
Uvanavu's Kiss is a tool for removal of pus from boils or cysts, though it can also see use injecting of liquids into the body.
Conveyance Tubes
After operations on the nose, throat, rectum, vagina, etc., it is standard practice to insert a tube of lead or bronze to prevent contraction or adhesion that might seal off the passageway. This tube is also used to convey medications.
Bone Forceps
Tool used to remove bone fragments. Primarily for use on wounds involving fracturing of the skull.
Bone Levers
Levers used to push bones back into place when setting after a break or dislocation. Also used to lever teeth out of the jaw.
Speculum
Instrument using a winch-and-screw mechanism to widen the rectal or vaginal opening, so that a patient might be examined more closely, and treatments administered directly.
Diagnosis Tools
Value Separation Centrifuge
A device used by the sorcerer Ledaal Kishwe to test samples so that contaminants and deceptions might be identified. The samples are mixed and then spun at high speed by the demon-powered mechanism, which screams as it does so.
Source: Mostly the medical toolset of ancient Rome.
