Surgeon's Set

[Paris, rue de l'École de Médecine], Mid-19th century, Long-grained green morocco case decorated with gilt roulettes with palm and star motifs, metal clasp, inner flaps lined with green silk, silver, vermeil, steel and nickel silver instruments, guilloche ebony handles, one ivory instrument.
Beautiful giberne case for an army surgeon by Charrière.
Folding case with three folding flaps and a bellows compartment, containing nearly thirty instruments, most signed Charrière. The case closes with a silver snap lock. This type of kit was worn on a belt or slung over the shoulder by army surgeons, and was designed to hold the smallest possible number of instruments as defined by the army.
In 1831, Frédéric Charrière (1803-1876) was commissioned by the Minister of War to "manufacture all standard models of instrument cases for military hospitals; knife boxes; ambulance bags for the infantry and saddlebags for the cavalry; trousse-gibernes for army medical officers, those for military veterinarians and first-aid boxes for state powder magazines. "* In 1841 his contract was renewed, and the manufacturer presented his instruments and kits for the 1844** Public Exhibition of the Products of French Industry.
Model with : 1 nickel silver stylus, unscrewable in three parts, with mechanical pencil and lead reservoir | 3 fluted probes, a Cooper needle with guilloche ebony handle | 1 steel spatula | 2 scalpels with ebony handles | various probes for men and women, including a stinger probe, a Belloc probe (to stop hemorrhaging in the nasal cavity) | various silver needle styli | 2 ebony oval-handled trocars with guilloché handles signed on one side, and marked "PBt Don | S G du G" on the other | cannulas, curved suture needles stored in the bellows compartment | a straightener | a catheter, etc. A steel tweezer is signed "Samson à Paris" (Samson Bienvenu, active in Paris between 1820 and 1862, Louis-Philippe's cutler who practiced on rue de l'école de médecine like Charrière).
Elegant, very well-preserved kit, dating from the early period of this famous maker, some traces of oxidation and rust in places.
References:
*Drulhon, Frédéric Charrière, fabricant d'instruments de chirurgie, Paris, chez l'auteur, 2008, p. 68 (on sale at the bookshop). **Charrière, Exposition nationale de l'industrie de 1844, .... Charrière,... Trousses-Agenda, trousses en général, trousses et gibernes pour MM. les chirurgiens militaires... Paris, 1849.