A rare Blackbee’s resilient skeleton speculum complete with its original wooden ring. The benefits of this entirely new form of speculum were espoused to the medical profession in the Lancet article of 1871 (last picture).

The ring was used to constrict the “blades” of the wire frame during insertion into a cylindrical shape. When in position in the vagina the ring would be pulled back and the metal frame would expand back into its resting expanded state.

In America this was called Blakeley’s Resilient Speculum as illustrated on p 433 of Tiemann’s American Armamentarium Chirurgical . However this English example was the forerunner.

• From the Phisick collection