Also 8 trochart, (trois-quarts, -quart), 8–9 trocart, trochar. [ad. F. troquart, trois-quarts (1694), trocart (1762), f. trois three + carre side, face of an instrument; so called from its triangular form.] A surgical instrument consisting of a perforator or stylet enclosed in a metal tube or cannula, used for withdrawing fluid from a cavity, as in dropsy, etc.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Trochar, a Cane, or Pipe made of Silver, or Steel, with a sharp-pointed End, us’d in tapping those that are troubled with the Dropsy.
1739. Huxham, in Phil. Trans., XLI. 644. A very small hollow Needle with Perforations, as in that used by some instead of the Trocar.
1744. Warrick, ibid., XLIII. 16. My Apparatus was a large Trois-quarts, made on purpose, and dipped in Oil; an Injector [etc.]. Ibid. (1751), XLVII. xl. 268. The common trocarts did not seem proper.
1758. J. S., Le Dran’s Observ. Surg. (1771), 216. He perforated it with the Troisquart.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. VI. iv. 304. The Ticks plunge their beaks into the skin in the same way as one may thrust in a trochar.
1876. Gross, Dis. Bladder, 32. If abscesses point, they must be opened with the knife, or trocar.
attrib. 1863–76. Curling, Dis. Rectum, 101. A sharp trocar-needle can be passed through the canula.
1905. Rolleston, Dis. Liver, 54. There was … fibrinous peritonitis around the site of the trocar punctures.
