er
the whole apparatus useless."[136]

The Smithsonian collection contains two patent models of American wet
cupping devices. The first is an ingenious cupping set patented by a
Philadelphia navy surgeon, Robert J. Dodd, in 1844. It consisted of a
metal syringe provided with a plate of lancets that screwed on to a glass
tube with a protuberance for collecting blood. The most interesting
feature of the apparatus was the provision made for cupping internal parts
of the body such as the vagina, throat, or rectum. One could attach to the
pump either a curved or a straight tapering glass tube, seven to eight
inches long, and corresponding flexible metal lancet rod. The pump could
also be adapted for extracting milk from the breasts of women by attaching
a metal cap with a hole just large enough to accommodate the nipple.[137]
The second patent model is that of W. D. Hooper of Liberty, Virginia, who
invented in 1867 an apparatus combining cup, pump, and scarificator. The
novel part of the instrument was the tubular blades that were injected
into the flesh and then left in place while the blood was being removed,
"by which means the punctures are kept from being closed prematurely, as
frequently happens with the ordinary device."[138]

It is unlikely that any of these ingenious devices were marketed in
quantity. For those skilled in the art of cupping, the torch, cups, and
scarificator were more effective. For those not experienced in the art,
the new devices were simply too expensive, inconvenient to carry about,
and fragile. While doubtless some surgeons bought fancy equipment in order
to impress their patients, other surgeons, and the professional cuppers,
realized that expensive and unfamiliar gadgets could inspire more dread
than awe, especially among rural patients. The cupper Monson Hills advised
his readers:

A person about to be cupped, is often needlessly alarmed by the
arrival of his operator, with a capacious box of instruments; and he
measures the severity of the pain he is about to undergo, by the
seeming multitude of instruments required to inflect it. If, on the
contrary, the few implements used are carried in the pocket, and
produced when about to be used, unobserved by the patient, this evil
is easily avoided.[139]

In seconding Hills' sentiments, W. A. Gillespie, the Virginia country
physician mentioned earlier, went a step further. Gillespie felt that the
rural physici