mmon dexterity, and if not very keen it does no
mischief, whereas a dull lancet is a most dangerous instrument; and
no one can calculate with certainty the depth to which it will
enter. To sharpen a lancet, is regarded by the cutler as one of his
nicest and most difficult jobs; it is one to which few surgeons are
competent.

The safety of using the fleam is demonstrated by daily experience;
there is no country in which venesection is more frequently performed
than in the United States, and perhaps none where fewer accidents
from the operation have occurred, of those few, I beg leave to state,
that all the aneurisms produced by bleeding, which I have seen, have
been in cases where the lancet was used. Among the advantages of the
spring-lancet economy is not the least. A country practitioner who is
constantly employing English lancets, and who is particular in using
none but the best, must necessarily consume half the emoluement
derived from the operation, in the purchase of his instruments. One
spring-lancet, with an occasional new blade, will serve him all his
life.[70]

This popularity is also reflected in various medical dictionaries of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that described the instrument and in
the wide variety of spring lancets in the Smithsonian collection.

One American user of the spring lancet, J. E. Snodgrass of Baltimore, was
inspired to compose a poem about the instrument, which appeared in the
_Baltimore Phoenix and Budget_ in 1841. He wrote:

To My Spring-Lancet

Years have passed since first we met,
Pliant and ever-faithful-slave!
Nobly thou standest by me yet,
Watchful as ever and as brave.

O, were the power of language thine,
To tell all thou hast seen and done,
Methinks the curious would incline,
Their ears to dwell they tales upon!

I love thee, bloodstain'd, faithful friend!
As warrior loves his sword or shield;
For how on thee did I depend
When foes of Life were in the field!

Those blood spots on thy visage, tell
That thou, thro horrid scenes, hast past.
O, thou hast served me long and well;
And I shall love thee to the Last!

A thousand mem'ries cluster round thee
In all their freshness! thou dost speak
Of friends far distant-friends who found thee
Aye with thy master, prompt to wreak

Vengeance on foes who strove to kill
With blows