A surgical instrument, usually a small clamp with two arms, used by doctors to grip and squeeze blood vessels during surgery to stop bleeding.
From 'hemostasis' + '-at' (instrument). Named for its function of stopping blood flow, this surgical tool became standard in operating rooms in the 20th century.
Surgeons keep dozens of hemostats hanging from a magnetic strip during operations, and they've gotten so good at using them that they can clamp a tiny vessel in a fraction of a second without damaging surrounding tissue.
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