CIVIL WAR Era CHARRIER Bloodletting Tool (Scarificator) 12 Blades, Working !!

Description

From my Medical Collection
:  Here we have an
Antique,
CIVIL WAR Era, J. F. B. CHARRIER, France, Bloodletting Tool (Scarificator) with 12 Blades
.
Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière was a Swiss-born French manufacturer of surgical instruments. Charrière was born in Cerniat, Switzerland. He moved to Paris at age 13, and was apprenticed to a manufacturer of knives. In 1820 he founded a company manufacturing surgical instruments, which quickly grew to 400 employees by around 1840, and was world-famous by his death in 1876. He developed and improved a number of instruments, especially hypodermic needles and catheters, among others. The side of the body has his mark.
The instrument is in Working condition !!
For hundreds of years it was believed that bleeding out some of the "bad" blood would help a person recover from illness or injury, and this even applied to animal care !!
The scarificator is an instrument with spring-loaded blades that deliver many cuts simultaneously.
To set the blades you pull back on the top long iron finger lever until the push-button side lever 'catches' the blades.  It is then 'loaded'.  These can be tricky to use so be CAREFUL !!!  You then hold the slotted bottom against the skin surface and pull the side lever.  The blades will rapidly pierce the skin.
Once the patient was cut, the doctor placed a warmed cup over the wounds. As the cup cooled, the vacuum created caused blood to flow from the wound, sometimes with the aid of a pump attached to the cup.  This 1800's example is in very nice 'uncleaned' condition.  The brass has minor surface oxidation and the iron lever has a nice aged patina.  This example comes with a nice added feature of an adjustable sliding bottom to vary the depth of cut of the blades.    The instrument is approx.1-1/2" square and approx. 2-1/2" tall including the lever.
This is a great early instrument that would add impact to your Civil War or Antique Medical Collection !
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