uide
to the Smithsonian collection. With this goal in mind, the catalog of
bloodletting instruments has been preceded by chapters surveying the
history of bloodletting and describing, in general terms, the procedures
and instruments that have been used since antiquity for venesection,
cupping, leeching, and veterinary bloodletting. In the course of our
research we have consulted several other collections of bloodletting
instruments, notably the collections of the Wellcome Museum of London, the
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the College of Physicians in
Philadelphia, the Institute of the History of Medicine at the Johns
Hopkins University, the Howard Dittrick Medical Museum in Cleveland, and
the University of Toronto. Illustrations from these collections and
references to them have been included in the cases where the Smithsonian
collection lacks a particular type of instrument.

Sources

While primary sources describing the procedures and presenting theoretical
arguments for and against bloodletting are plentiful, descriptions of the
instruments and their manufacture are often difficult to find. Before the
nineteenth century, one may find illustrations of bloodletting instruments
in the major textbooks on surgery, in encyclopedias such as that of
Diderot, and in compendia of surgical instruments written by surgeons. The
descriptions following the drawings are often meager and give little
indication of where, when, and how the instruments were produced. Until
well into the nineteenth century, the tools used by barber-surgeons,
surgeons, and dentists were made by blacksmiths, silversmiths, and
cutlers. These craftsmen generally left little record of their work. As
the demand for surgical instruments increased, specialized surgical
instrument makers began to appear, and the cutler began to advertise
himself as "Cutler and Surgical Instrument Maker" rather than simply
"Cutler and Scissor Grinder." A few advertising cards dating from the
eighteenth century may be found, but the illustrated trade catalog is a
product of the nineteenth century. Among the earliest compendia/catalogs
of surgical instruments written by an instrument maker, rather than by a
surgeon, was John Savigny's _A Collection of Engravings Representing the
Most Modern and Approved Instruments Used in the Practice of Surgery_
(London, 1799). This was followed a few decades later by the brochures and
catalog (1831) of the famous London instrumen