The Pelican is a tooth-extraction instrument introduced by the French surgeon, Guy de Chauliac, in the mid 14th century. A pioneer in his own time, Chauliac was a professor of surgery at University of Montpellier. His textbooks were used for several hundred years, before surgery texts by Ambroise Pare (Paris) became dominant. The knob at the end can be turned to tighten the tongue of the pelican to fit the width of the tooth. The Pelican reappears in Pare’s book and is continuesly used for the next hundred years. In the 18th Century when professional dentistry takes off, the pelican is used with along a few other tools of extraction such as the ubiquous forceps, the toothkey (see other displays of toothkeys) and the elevator. These four instruments dominated extractions. However, the pelican disappears in the beginning of the 19th century replaced first by better toothkeys and later, in 1841 by customized forceps, introduced by John Tomes, a British surgeon. Description provided by Andrew I Spielman
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