Improvements in Instruments for Applying Medicaments to Cavities of the Body, Applicable also to other Surgical Purposes.
Year: 1887

page_text: Improvements in Instruments for Applying Medicaments to Cavities
of the Body, Applicable also to other Surgical Purposes.
I, ALLEN RIPLEY FOOTE, residing at 131 Garfield Place, Cincinnati, in the County
of Hamilton, and State of Ohio, one of the United States of America, gentleman, do
hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be
performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement :-
My invention relates to that class of instruments called Applicators or Vectors
which consists of flexible wires or sounds, either coated or not with some medicament,
and it consists in a short (or long as the case may be) handle with female screw
threads at one end, combined with the short vectors proper or flexible sounds in the
various ways herein after described and claimed.
The invention consists also in a short flexible wire with or without a small head or
bulb at one end, coated with a medicament and in a steel olive or head with female
screw die which cuts automatically, a male thread upon the short tip which is inserted.
Similar letters refer to similar parts in the several figures of the drawings in which.
Figure, 1, shows a single tip with the holder with solid handle.
Figure, 2, shows tip and holder with
open
handle.
Figure, 3, shows still another form with short handle and the vector tip screwed
in place.
Figure, 4, shows one of the tips used as a sponge holder.
Figure, 5, shows one of the tips bent to serve as curette.
Figures, 6, and, 7, show the vector tip hent to serve as hooks.
Figure, S, shows the vector barbed to serve as a simple flexible applicator.
Figure, 9, a, b, c, show the holder provided with an olive shaped bulb of steel,
furnished with a female screw or die for entting a thread upon the soft tips during
insertion.
Figure, 10, shows a form adapted for use in the throat.
Figure, 11; a, b, shows the vector tip bent spirally and adapted to carry a sliver of
cotton or piece of sponge for use in cleansing a cavity or applying a medicament
thereto.

page_text: '
Figure, 12, shows the tip medicated.
Figure, 13, shows the tips as boxed and sold.
::
Figure, 14, shows the longest size of vector tip formed into a Belloc canula or
sound.
In making various examinations and in applying remedies to cavities or openings
in the human body, various difficulties have arisen and many different sorts of
instruments are required to be kept constantly on hand by the physician and surgeon.
With nearly all the instruments previously invented it has been exceedingly difficult.
to carry medicaments like idoform into, for example the cervix uteri. In forcing the
instrument into the canal the medicament is forced off. Again the work of keeping
the expensive instruments thoroughly cleansed and disinfected is great, and a careless
attendant becomes unwittingly the means of spreading disease.
This led first to furnishing to the physician long flexible wires coated with any
preferred formula. The medicament is in a solid form and is only soluble when
warmed and moistened by the cavity in which it is applied.
These small coated wires can follow every sinuosity of a canal. They are cheap and
can be thrown away after each use. A difficuly was experienced in not having an
easily manipulated handle, and this led to furnishing a vecior holder for continuous
use, with all sorts of tips, which could be medicated, or not, and so inexpensive that
they can be thrown away after each operation.
Formulas can be prepared ready for use and handles as articles of trade, making it
an economical, compact and convenient way for the physician to carry the remedies
and to apply them. Being furnished medicated according to certain well known
formulas, the physician has only to decide upon his medicament and it is almost
instantly ready for use. The holders are made of tough flexible metal plated if desired;
highly polished and as in figure, 1, graduated in half inch spaces and about 9), inches
long. The, 2, form is made from a single piece of tough flexible wire bent upon itself
to form a handle.
One form of short tips is of soft copper, finished or not with white plating. This
plating will not scale off, and will resist the action of acids perfectly, for all practicable
requirements. They are of uniform gauge, and the screw for attaching them to the
lolder is cut on a scale of, 6, or, 8, threads to the inch, corresponding with the thread in
the holder. They are about, 24 inches in length. In order to furnish smaller and less
expensive tips, they are furnished in lengths of, 2, and, 9, inches without screw
threads at the ends and the holder shown in figure, 9, is furnished with an
(so called) containing a steel die screw.
"olive"
The olive can be made separate and attached by swaying or in any approved way
to a holder body of soft wire.
By giving the tip (shown boxed in figure, 13) about three or four turns, a thread is
cut in its end and it is securely attached. It is only necessary in using it in a cavity
to turn to the right and so remove all possibility of unscrewing. The advantage of
these vector tips are that a physician can have any length he pleases and can after
each treatment throw away the tip used, avoiding absolutely all danger of infection.
He can enjoy the luxury of using an entirely new applicator for each operation.
The tips are so small and extremely flexible that they can be used in the most
delicate operations. They can be exclusively used for all work requiring the use of
cotton wads. The uses to which these vector tips can be put, in the hands of a skilled
operator are almost innumerable. They can be used in every speciality of practice.
By cutting a few barbs with a common knife the tip will carry a sponge as in
figure, 4. By bending the point around the large part of the handle it can be made
as in figure, 5, into a curette and used readily in the uterus or can serve any one of
the numerous uses to which hooks are applied as in figures, 6, &, 7, either clipping off
the bulbed end or allowing it to remain at will.
The tip may be wound spirally around the body of the holder and as in figure, 11,
he used to carry cotton. When the tip extension is attached to the long holder it
furnishes the uterine gauge of, 21, inches. The graduated scale on the holder indicates
the depth of the insertion, while the flat of the Tooped handle, or a mark made easily

page_text: upon the jet handle indicates the direction. The tip can be easily given any desired
curvature. Small bits of sponge can be attached to the tips with the aid of a spiral
hook or loop, a bit of sealing wax, or in other suitable manner.
These tips with the holders take the place of a large number of instruments and thus
save weight, space, time, care and in an unforeseen emergency, can readily serve a
multitude of uses. The simple straight, short vector tip as seen in fig. 9, 6, may serve
for catheterism of the nasal duct, or as a style for dilating it. By simply rubbing the
longest of the fine wire tips between the thumb and finger nails the operator can at
once have a very fair extemporized Belloc Sound (so called) by which a compress
can be drawn well up into the posterior nares to controll epistaxis.
I am aware that it is not new to coat wires or stems of wood with various
medicaments when found necessary in order to render the local application of such
médicaments practicable, and I do not therefore claim such medicated applications,
broadly.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I claim is :—
1. A holder or carrier for vector tips provided at the end with female screwthreads
and combined with short flexible tips with male screw threads, all as and for the
purpose described.
2. A holder for vector tips with an "olive" formed with a steel female screw die for
cutting thread upon the soft wire tips as they are turned in, all as and for purposes set
forth.
3. As an article of manufacture, vector tips of short pieces of flexible wire for
insertion in holders and with one end coated with a medicament, all as and for the
purpose set forth.
4. As an article of manufacture, vector tips of short flexible wire with small olives
or bulbs upon one end and adapted for insertion in holders, all as and for the purpose
set forth.