"It used to be used in World War 1 but we’ve got no clue what it was meant for"
A: "It’s a curette, a medical instrument used for scraping away tissue (for example removing certain skin lesions, removing dead tissue from a wound)."
"They're oil absorbing pads and since oil floats on water the tube is there to stop the oil from flowing while letting the water pass under it"
I had to visit reddit to look it up... I feel dirty.