The instrument used by the operator is the "tenaculum helvetianum" (tenette helvétienne), as described by Jean-Adrien Helvetius in Traité des pertes de sang .. accompagné de sa lettre sur la nature et guérison du cancer, Paris 1697, pp. 153-155 and folding plate f.p. 153; L. Heister, Institutiones chirurgicae, Amsterdam 1739, vol. 2, pp. 740-741 and tab. XXIII fig. 1. A similar instrument is used by Saint Agatha's torturer in an earlier (ca. 1600?) engraving by Philips Galle]]>