A pair of matching blunt hook and crotchet with ebony handles by Goulding & Ford

These instruments of the highest quality are made from unplated steel, the shafts of which are secured to finely croshatched and contoured ebony handles with brass screws. The hook may have been used in normal deliveries to bring down a limb but the crotchet was used to perform a craniotomy to extract the foetral skull. The shafts after signed Goulding & Ford NY.

• From the Phisick collection