Galt Trephine
date: label: Date made
content: 1861-1864
name: label: maker
content: Gemrig, Jacob H.
label: user
content: Dungan, Jacob S.
label: maker
content: Jacob H. Gemrig
notes: label: Description
content: This trephine was part of an almputation surgical set which belonged to Lt. Col. William Irvin Wolfley, Surgeon in Chief of the 62nd Ohio Infantry. Dr. Wolfley was attached to DeRussey's Division of the Army of the Potomac, and was in charge of the convalescent camps along the Potomac from Chain Bridge to Alexandria, Virginia. This overall set has sixty instruments, the majority of which were manufactured by Jacob H. Gemrig of Philadelphia. Twelve instruments in this set were made by Otto & Reynders whose shop was at 64 Chatham Street in New York City, and one was made by Codman and Shurtleff of Boston, Massachusetts. Sets containing different instruments from different manufacturers were common as surgeons often simply replaced instruments that were broken or lost.
label: Description
content: Jacob Gemrig whose company made this instrument was a German immigrant who had experience as a cutler, an individual who made knives and scissors. After immigrating to the United States, Gemrig began making medical instruments in the 1840s. In the 1860s, he won a major contract to supply medical instruments to the Union Army.
label: Description
content: This instrument is a trephine, an instrument which was typically used to bore a hole in the skull. Trephination has a long history and was practiced in places as far ranging as Peru, China, Greece, Zimbabwe, and Egypt. The procedure was performed for a variety of reasons; it was often used to treat head wounds but it was also used to treat epilepsy or what was believed to be possession.
label: Description
content: This trephine probably would have been used in conjunction with a scalpel, bone brush, and a Hey’s saw. The rotating metal circle would have been used to create the hole in the skull after the patient had been sedated.
label: Description
content: By the time of the Civil War, trephination was declining as a practice but it was still performed. It could be used to great effect especially in the case of a depressed skull fracture. The procedure came, however, with a high level of risk; over half of patients who underwent this procedure did not survive. In cases where the procedure was successful, patients frequently went on to live a fairly normal healthy life.
label: Description
content: Gabriel Alexander Dickie Galt (1830-1908), a physician in Virginia, introduced a new form of trephine in 1860. Here, the cutting head had the form of a truncated cone with spiral teeth, and it could apparently cut the skull bone without touching the brain. This example has a Gemrig inscription.
label: Description
content: Ref: G. A. D. Galt, “A new Trephine; being adapted to the free and rapid penetration of the Cranium, without danger of wounding the Membranes,” New York Journal of Medicine 8 (1860): 426-427.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
topic: label: related event
content: Civil War
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.316384.21
label: accession number
content: 316384
label: catalog number
content: 316384.21
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Trephine
label: Object Name
content: trephine
label: Object Name
content: surgical set
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 10.6 cm x 1 cm; 4 3/16 in x 3/8 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7/8 in x 4 1/8 in x 3/4 in; 2.2225 cm x 10.4775 cm x 1.905 cm