Velvet-lined wooden case with brass fittings and cartouche marked, "Doctor M. Samaniego / 1879," 5 5/8 x 15 3/4 x 2 3/4 in. closed dimensions (surface wear to wooden case, varied patination to brass fittings, divider panel missing and replaced with replica by consignor, 2019; tools with highly varying degrees of wear).The contents of the kit, along with Goulding's address on many of the tools, date its manufacture to between 1845 and 1849. It is unclear why the date on the cartouche is approximately 30 years later.

Kit includes 6 instruments marked "U.S. Army Hosp. Dept." and "Goulding" (some include 57 Chatham St. address), including 5 knives and one bone saw. Case also contains 2 nesting brass ear or nasal speculae, one marked "Tanner Drug Co.;" an aluminum syringe box marked "Powers & Anderson Richmond, VA," housed in a worn ochre-colored felt cover (syringe missing glass chamber); a black leather-covered pocket case containing 4 metal scalpels, cyst curette, grooved director with tongue-tie shield, combination grooved director and aneurysm needle, and a Dieffenbach-style needle holder; and a set of surgical sewing needles. 

[With:] POWER, John Hatch. Anatomy of the Arteries of the Human Body: Descriptive and Surgical with the Descriptive Anatomy of the Heart. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1862. Signed by Civil War surgeon Julius A. Skilton, 1st Michigan Cavalry. -- SMITH, Stephen. Hand Book of Surgical Operations. New York: Baillière Brothers, 1862. THIRD EDITION. Twice signed by Julius A. Skilton, 1st Michigan Cavalry. -- SOARES, André. Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002. -- And sundry photocopied materials including a staple-bound print-out of E.B. D'Hamel's The Adventures of a Tenderfoot. -- Together, 3 books and additional photocopied research materials related to Dr. Mariano Samaniego and Julius A. Skilton.   

Dr. Mariano Samaniego (1832-1905) was born in Jano, Chihuahua, Mexico, but moved to El Paso del Norte at the age of six upon his father's death in an 1838 Apache raid. Samaniego, along with his widowed mother and siblings, lived in the home of his great uncle, Father Ramón Ortiz, a highly influential religious leader, who helped organize resistance during the Mexican-American War. Funded by his great uncle, Samaniego was educated at a seminary in Durango, and went on to attend medical school at the University of Paris. When Samaniego returned to Mexico, they found it ion the brink of conflict with France. Samaniego served as a surgeon in the Republican Army of the North during the resulting Second Franco-Mexican War under command of General Luis Terrazas. After the war, Dr. Samaniego returned to El Paso del Norte, practicing medicine and dentistry on either side of the US/Mexico border. He also took an active role in politics, serving as temporary governor of Chihuahua twice, head of the Juarez city government, and as a representative in the Mexican National Congress. By the time of his death in 1905, Dr. Samaniego was revered as one of the region's most important and influential people.