Early practitioners of orthodox medicine used a variety of instruments that were considered essential then but gruesome in modern age. These medical instruments were used to initiate bleeding, blistering, vomiting and purging. Instruments such as forceps were used in delivering babies.
In the winter of 1818 Mary Way (1769-1833), a painter of portrait miniatures, was working in New York City and going blind,(1) She was being treated by an orthodox physician and thus endured "the usual ...