Antique Brass Scarificator Blood Letting Device w/ Box

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Antique Brass Scarificator Blood Letting Device w/ Box

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Sold Date: 05/15/2007
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Tools

Scarificator Antique Blood Letting Medical Device

This auction is for an antique medical device called the scarificator. This device was used to let blood, or bleed a patient. This one has twelve spring loaded blades and is spring loaded. It is sqare, made of brass, and measures 2 inches long, by 1.75 inches wide, by 1.25 inches tall, not including the button, or trigger on the side or the depth adjustment on the top. Marked on the sides are stars. Would assume this is German. Also comes in nice cardboard like case. Bottom has the number 1048 or 1848. If you look closely you can see the fancy engraving on the bottom.
A brass instrument with multiple sharp blades on rotors, attached to a strong spring. When released, the blades would make shallow cuts in a patient's skin. Traditional medical theory of the 19th century supported the idea that if the body was kept in equilibrium, a person stayed healthy. Physicians used scarificators and other implements for bloodletting to maintain the balance of the body and relieve the excess of "bad humors" that caused ill health.
Blood letting was a technique of drawing blood from the body that was practiced from ancient times up thorough the 19th century. Its original theoretical basis was the Galenic theory, according to which the four humors blood, flem, black bile, and yellow bile needed to be kept in balance so that person would remain healthy. Perhaps because of understanding of anatomy and circulation advanced ahead of the knowledge of disease treatment, blood letting remained popular long after Humoral theory was abandoned. Single blade fleems or lancets were frequently used to cause bleeding. Scarificators like this one, have multiple short blades that are spring loaded and generally ranged in the number of four and twenty. They allow the operator to make a series of parallel cuts instantaneously into the small blood vessels close to the skin.
STILL COCKS BACK FINE AND SPRING IS STILL STRONG.