Aspiration
Aspirating kit with Wyman style aspirating trocar, circa 1850-1875
Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch (1808–1892), received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1832 and became a pioneer in the study of the diseases of the chest. He believed that patients with pleuritic effusions could be relieved by the removal of fluid—an idea that was strenuously opposed by his medical peers who believed that natural absorption was the only correct option. Bowditch persisted in his idea and was vindicated in 1850 when Dr. Morrill Wyman (1812–1903) of Cambridge, Massachusetts devised a type of trocar and cannula connected with a suction pump and used it to successfully remove the fluid from the chest of one of Dr. Bowditch’s patients. Dr. Bowditch went on to use the method in hundreds of cases without a single death. His exhaustive studies and publications introduced a skeptical profession to the now well-known operation of thoracentesis. —Source: American Medical Biographies ~ Bowditch, Henry Ingersoll (1808–1892)