Medicine Through Time Gallery: Bleeding - Hell?
The Lancet
The earliest bloodletters probably used sharpened pieces of wood and stone to "breath a vein." There are many steel lancets with flat ebony or ivory handles that exist today (figure 1).
The lancet shown below is a standard 19th century thumb lancet in tortoise shell cover.
Thumb lancets were no doubt sometimes carried individually, but more commonly in a lancet case. These varied in form from simple leather boxes to beautiful engraved cases made of silver, like the one shown below, mother of pearl, tortoise shell, and even gold.
