Surgical instruments in Greek and Roman times / by John Stewart Milne.

  • Milne, John Stewart, 1871-
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Surgical instruments in Greek and Roman times / by John Stewart Milne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    182/316 (page 166)
    Serib. Larg. speaks of pestles of wood : Hoc medicamentum cum componitur pilum ligneum sit (olii). In Paul we have a mortar of lead and a leaden pestle mentioned several times : 'Ev /xoAv/38tVa) ty8t(t> kclI fj.o\v{3bLV(p holbvKi Xetwcraj. ' Triturate ceruse with wine and rose oil in a leaden mor- tar with a leaden pestle and anoint with it' (III. lix). Galen (De Simpl. x) speaks of bronze mortars : ' Wherefore, some call only the natural mineral by this name, but some also the substance which is prepared in a bronze mortar with a copper pestle by means of the urine of a boy, which some value according to the differences of the verdigris. But it is better to prepare it in summer, or at least in hot weather, rubbing up the urine in the mortar, and it answers the more excellently if the bronze of which you make the mortar is red and the pestle too, for more is thus rubbed off by the turning of the pestle when the bronze is of a softer nature.' Paul mentions a mortar of marble. A small mortar of bronze was found amongst the instruments of the surgeon of Paris. Another small one from my own collection is shown in PL LII, fig. 3. The excavation of the temple of Aesculapius in the forum has brought to light a large number of mortars of marble. They are mostly about six or seven inches in diameter, but are much deeper in propor- tion than our modern mortars are. The spathomele and other olivary probes were no doubt often used as small pestles. Whetstone. Greek, clkovt] ; Latin, cos. We saw that several of the slabs on which ointments were prepared had evidently been used for sharpening knives, and whetstones are often found of varying degrees of rough- ness from sandstone to fine argillaceous smooth stones. Paul (VII. iii) says: