Galt Trephine
name: label: maker
content: Gemrig, Jacob H.
label: user
content: Dungan, Jacob S.
label: maker
content: Jacob H. Gemrig
notes: 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 consists of a wooden handle that was then attached to a rotating cutting metal circle. The trephine 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.316384.22
label: accession number
content: 316384
label: catalog number
content: 316384.22
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Trephine
label: Object Name
content: trephine
label: Object Name
content: surgical set
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 cm x 2.6 cm; 5 1/2 in x 1 in
label: Measurements
content: overall1: 1 1/4 in x 4 3/4 in x 1 in; 3.175 cm x 12.065 cm x 2.54 cm