Sentence:  I was not too sure, as a child, what doctors "did," and glimpses of catheters and <WSD>bougies</WSD> in their kidney dishes, retractors and speculums, rubber gloves, catgut thread, and forecepts - all this, I think, rather frightened me, though it fascinated me too. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A tapered cylindrical instrument for introducing an object into a tubular anatomical structure, or to dilate such a structure, as with an esophageal bougie.