The mortar and pestle were important tools for apothecaries.
Mystery and intrigue surrounded apothecaries of the Middle Ages, but by the colonial era in the 17th and 18th centuries, the trade had developed into a sort of medical profession. Colonial apothecaries prescribed pharmaceutical and natural remedies for illness, aided in childbirth and performed minor surgeries, including tooth extractions. Apothecaries, or their apprentices, had several of trade tools on hand for house calls.
Mortar and Pestle
An apothecary usually made his own medicines and treatments. This he did by grinding herbs, plants and other substances by using a mortar and pestle. The apothecary might prepare his remedies in his shop, but some treatments might require fresh preparation. The mortar and pestle were so recognizable to the trade that some apothecaries marked their shops with signs bearing the image of these tools.
Surgical Instruments
Apothecaries treated injuries, including broken bones. They also helped with childbirth and so carried forceps and surgical knives to aid in the procedure. Another common surgical tool was the lancet, a small knife used to cut abscesses or draw blood. Bloodletting originated in ancient Greece and Egypt to treat fevers, headaches and other inexplicable ailments. By colonial times, the procedure was almost 2,500 years old. As an alternative to placing a lancet into the vein of an ill patient, apothecaries used leeches to drain blood.
Dental Instruments
Colonial people cleaned their teeth with gargles, scrapers or roots shaped into brushes. Tooth decay and other oral problems commonly ailed them. An apothecary or his apprentice performed many tooth extractions with specialized tools. These included: Tooth Keys, which looked like colonial door keys for removal of lower molars; Goat's Foot elevators to lift a tooth from the bone; and Pelicans, named because this tool that used leverage to loosen an infected tooth resembled the bird. Unfortunately for colonial patients, anesthesia was not used in tooth extractions until the mid-1800s.
Medical Manuals and Textbooks
Apothecaries learned their trade by working for several years as an apprentice, by observing in hospitals, by attending lectures, and by consulting medical manuals and textbooks. Many of these books that date to the colonial era still survive in the National Library of Medicine. Apothecaries carried manuals to consult on the treatment of diseases, surgical procedures, medical theories, the uses of certain drugs and medicinal recipes.
Tags: tooth extractions, mortar pestle, mortar pestle were, pestle were