Length: 14.5 cm
Perfect condition.
In a 1742 article published in Medical Essays and Observations (Vol V part I) Alexander Monro (1697-1767) wrote in an article entitled "A description of several surgical instruments": "Another instrument [the key] for extracting teeth was given to me by Doctor John Fothergill [1712-1780], a London physician.” It is there that we find the first representation of the "English key" and Fothergill seems to have only transmitted this instrument which he had seen in London. The “English key” would therefore have appeared between 1730 and 1740, after the works of Garengeot (1725) and Fauchard (Le Chirurgien Dentiste, 1728).