Title: Tonsillotome

Identifier: Country Doctor Museum   (https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/14358)

Description: Dr. Mathew Moore Butler, who lived from 1839 to 1913, used this instrument to remove tonsils. The tonsillotome was invented in 1827 by Philip Physick; prior to the tonsillotome a method known as the “wire loop” was used. The wire loop method involved wrapping a thin wire around the tonsils and waiting twelve hours for them to fall off. The design of the eighteenth century uvulatome was the basis for the tonsillotome. The tonsillotome was so popular that it was used through the end of the nineteenth century.