Historical Information about Hey's Saw
Photo of Sir William Hey's own saws, made for him in 1803, from which all later "Liston's knives"
descend. Source: Bennion, Antique Medical Instruments, 23.
The broader lineage of Hey's knives is apparent from this set of
skull saws, from Albucases (12/13th cent.); Wryghtson (14th cent.);
Andreas del Croce (2 examples, 16th cent.); Cockell's (1783);
Hey's (6 examples, 1803); later-pattern Hey's (6 examples). Hey's wrote
in his Practical Observations on Surgery (1803), "Such
a saw I can with confidence recommend after a trial of twenty years,
during which time I have rarely used the trephine in fractures of the
skull." Source: Thompson, History and Evolution of Surgical
Instruments (1942), 57-59.
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