Why does a retractor barely longer than a finger turn up in plastic, thyroid, vascular and small-bone trays alike? Because most of surgery happens in the first centimetre of tissue, and the Senn is built precisely for that shallow, delicate work. Named for the American surgeon Nicholas Senn, this double-ended hand retractor is one of […]

When a Balfour or a pair of handheld blades runs out of reach — a morbidly obese abdomen, a deep pelvic dissection, a liver transplant that will run six hours — surgeons reach for a table-mounted ring system. The Bookwalter is the reference design in that class. Unlike a frame retractor that rests on the

Mid-laparotomy, the wound is open but the field keeps collapsing. Two assistants are already committed to handheld blades, and the surgeon needs a third hand that never tires. This is the moment the Balfour earns its place on the tray. The Balfour abdominal retractor is a self-retaining frame that holds the abdominal wall open without

What holds the abdominal wall open during a laparotomy while the surgeon works two layers deeper? In most open abdominal and pelvic cases, the answer is a Richardson retractor in an assistant’s hand. It is the instrument that turns a closed cavity into a workable field — and getting the blade size right is the

It carries a military name because it was standardised for US military field surgery in the mid-twentieth century, when one instrument that could handle both shallow and deeper retraction saved weight and space in a field kit. The design proved so practical it never left the civilian OR. Today the army navy retractor — sometimes