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This flat piece of wood was used for holding down the tongue during
a procedure to remove the uvula, the small piece of soft tissue
that hangs down at the back of the throat. Like the tonsils, it
can become swollen and infected. Just as tonsils were routinely
removed in the UK in the 1950s, in the 1930s in the Darfur region
of Sudan, children’s uvulas were also commonly removed. The
instrument was used by a Tama blacksmith in El Fasher, in Sudan.
It was made some time before 1937.
View
database record 1937.35.52
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