Instruments

“Objects, in general, contain symbolic messages in addition to allowing for certain functions. This is true for surgical instruments, which can be designed to invoke associations with modern technology and science or to symbolize solidity and prestige. Instrument designs can also embody group identity, for example, when surgeons adopted ‘distinctive, all-metal (usually steel) instrumentation . . . while physicians continued to use tools with wooden, brass or ivory parts’ – a step that ‘emphasized that surgery was different, and independent, from medical specialties,’ as Ghislaine Lawrence remarks. The naming of instruments after their surgical inventor is another element of this symbolic dimension of surgical objects” (Schlich II, 246).