Antique tonsil guillotines - photos

[Jon]

Tonsil guillotines - old medical devices for tonsillectomies.

[Frank S]

Yes Doc that is my hair trigger long colt .45 poking you in your bits, be careful how you stick that thing down my throat.

[PJs]

Wicked looking implements of good intent but put me to sleep before you start. I think the bottom one was the one used on me as a kid.

I can barely swallow after seeing these...I need Ice Cream. My parents promised me ice cream after but no way I could eat it...I did get a Brownie Camera from Gma and Gpa though!

[Frank S]

I still have mine I did have tonsillitis real bad once My throat was inflamed and I had little white blisters on them just about couldn't manage to swallow anything. after a couple of days my dad said boy I am going to cure those things or kill you trying I might have been around 9 years old or younger.
He grabbed his fifth of whiskey and said take a big swig of this and hold your head back with it in your mouth until it goes down your throat Then put a small handfull of these little hot peppers ion your mouth and take another swig then chew them up until you swallow them then go lay down and go to sleep.
My tonsils have never bothered me since infact I don't remember my ever having a sore throat in my lifetime since.

[PJs]

I had ear infection all the time and 3 ruptured eardrums as a kid before they finally removed mine. Seems we were in San Angelo at the time, probably 6...nary a problem since and I had a Brownie camera.

Your story Reminds me of my GPa and his pepper juice and whisky after almost getting et by the hogs. Slipped in the muck and fell through the fence while feeding them and broke his leg...pulled himself back through but not before the hogs had their way with both legs. Cures most things he said, and was told to be his fathers cure also...and GGPa was born in 1850 as Gpa was born in 1876, (Just after the Centennial). I remember him showing me the scars one time...not unlike yours but smaller and more of them. I imagine your dad got it from his as well.

And my favorite story was that Gpa took the wagon to town by himself for supplies (a 3 day trip) when he was 9 (1885). Had the biggest hands I ever saw...wish I'd had more time with him but we left for Germany, shortly after he passed at 80.

[Frank S]

Pjs as I have often noted my dad was a marine he had 2 scars he was particularly proud of the entry and exit wounds of a Japanese bayonet through his left kidney. He killed the soldier detached the riffle from the bayonet leaving it in his side and defended his position until he was found the next day half dead with a dozen dead Japanese near him. Yeah he was tough as nails and his methods of tending to what he called minor injuries and illnesses were equally as stern as he was.
But you know what, I respected him for it, hated him at times but still respected him.

[PJs]

I gotta say removing the bayonet intact from the end of an Arisaka while impaled is bad ass as it gets. I have one and the bayonet...they don't come off that easily!

Yeah he was tough as nails and his methods of tending to what he called minor injuries and illnesses were equally as stern as he was.
But you know what, I respected him for it, hated him at times but still respected him.

I never felt that Gpa was proud of his Hog incident and scars, but his story I think was more about paying attention...hogs are not to be trusted, and here is what they will do to you, if you don't pay attention.

I thought considerably before responding to your story, as I almost curtly said something like; you got a tonsillectomy from your dads methods. It felt very harsh for a sick kid to endure on top of the horrific sore throat, but evidently it worked despite the cure. I think it is an age old process we go through to make us who we become. I had inclinations as to why Dad joined the Navy and went to war on a tanker in the South Pacific at 16 (lied on sign up) for that familiar Hate/Love/Respect process but they were never really confirmed other than a few word like I needed to get out of there and such. I have many of those crappy moments surface once in a while about my dad, but age and experiences tells me some of those tactics were some of that learning by negative example that actually made me better.

High on my list is being tossed in a pool at about 4-5 to learn how to swim. I did not like water, especially deep water and was content to wade but that's it. Mom tried to teach me a couple of times gingerly and about the third time I was clinging to the side of the pool in about 3 foot of water. Dad reached down from the side picked me up by one arm and said you need to learn how to swim and tossed me out into the middle of the deep end. Laughed when I came up gurgling and spitting and all he said was Swim Boy...repeatedly. Must have gone under about 5-6 times and finally got a little of dog paddle going and got to the edge...and when he came over to me I push off to get away from him. To this day I'm not sure he wouln't have waited till I popped up face down to rescue me. Almost seven decades and I still remember that clearly...and hated him and to this day have no respect for that act. However, in High School I got my senior life saving cert and went longer by 4 minutes than anyone else treading water fully clothed (wonder why¿) and spent part of that summer as a life guard. In my 20's early 30's I was an avid water skier and white water rafter and saved a few that upended canoes and a couple of rafters...and likely saved my own life at least twice in Skiing and rafting accidents of my own. Ab dived a few times and a lot of lake and ocean snorkeling, and a diving cert way back when, and finally got to do 2 magnificent tank dives on the Great Barrier reef in my 50's. So maybe that negative example made me a bit better by saving a few folks and actually had a ton of fun along the way.

Perhaps in some way that stuff is about teaching will¿ I know that my choices as I became a father were to take a different approach based on what I got, not that I was easy, but clear (most of the time) about what and how I wanted my kids to learn and become for themselves. As a single dad for 10 years I'm sure my son has a few of those crappy memories and since he's smarter than me will probably figure out sooner the value of some of those for himself. No textbooks worth a damn, imho about raising kids...we've been practicing for 10k years or more....and I think it's getting better in some and yet worse in other generations.

[Frank S]

We have strayed from the tonsil torture cutting device but. I learned to swim quite easily. I was about 4 or so my dad and I were fishing from the small wooden boat he had made. He had I were going across lake Travis just north west of Austin I was sitting near the bow of the flat bottom boat when we hit choppy water and I was thrown overboard, this was long before anyone thought that you needed life preservers to ride in a boat. Probably the only we we had on board that would float were the
wooden ores. He tossed one of them at me and said hold on to this while I bring the boat around and pick you up. THe ore landed in the water about 10 miles from me actually about 10 feet but at the time it seemed like miles. to a kid who had never swam before. Like you I splashed around until I figured out I could grab a hand full of water and pull myself through it. It was quite a while before he could maneuver the little boat against the wind with the small outboard and rescue me.
The ore was not enough to keep me completely afloat but I kind of got it under me and kept dog paddling. After that he couldn't keep me out of the water around our boat house

[PJs]

Yup perhaps off que, but undecided if I should erase my posts, as like tools people evolve...mostly. Perhaps we could look at some adenoid removal tools as that seems to be the new go to for ear infections. Had to fight with the doc over my daughters similar issues and finally settled on Adenoids instead of tonsils.

https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/heal...de-device.html

[Frank S]

No,no,no no, all posts submitted to a thread IMO have a certain mystical way of creating a cohesiveness or cement between the poster and the readers. Some threads on other forums are so strictly regulated to topic acuity they take on a creepy monotone much like one of my old college professors hearing his voice was like overdosing on diazepam and made you think about self lobotomy
On a lighter note after listening to him in a 3 hour lecture the prospect of having that tonsil guillotine shoved in your mouth might not have sounded like such a bad idea I could have skipped at least 1 or 2 of his lectern