Yesterday an amazing and thought provoking symposium entitled Incarcerated Bodies took place in Kilmainham Gaol . It looked at the history of hunger strikes, the instruments used to force feed patients and prisoners and how 'dark collections' should, or should not, be exhibited. Not for the faint-hearted! Having presented a paper entitled 'Force Feeding Implements in the RCSI Heritage Collections', the thought occurred to us why not feature one of these implements as an 'Intriguing Heritage Item'. So tah dah!! Lid of wooden case holding a 19th century stomach pump with 'Stomach Pump' written on it RCSI/MI/169 Stomach pump RCSI/MI/169 This stomach pump which is housed in a beautiful velvet lined wooden box is from the 19th century and unfortunately doesn't have any makers mark on it. The pump itself is brass and is accompanied by tapered bone or ivory implements, a black wooden bite bar and two pieces of tubing; one thick clo...