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

  • Milne, John Stewart, 1871-
Date:
1907
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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)

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    Bronze. Although, as I have shown, iron and steel were largely used in the manufacture of instruments, fortunately for us bronze was the metal usually selected, for thus many instru- ments have withstood the lapse of time which would other- wise have been oxidized out of existence. Copper is much more easily got from ore than iron, and consequently it was the first to be used by man, and very early the advantage of combining it with tin to form bronze was found out. Bronze was used by the Egyptians 6,000 years ago, and the Phoe- nicians, who got it from them, passed it on to the whole of Europe. The quantity of tin in the bronze is very constantly about 7\ per cent. The majority of the instruments which have been pre- served to us are of bronze. Hippocrates (i. 58) says: XaA.K(o/xan 6e ir\r]v ro)v 6pydvm>, }ir]b€vl XPVar^0i' KaAAa)7rtcr/xos' yap us elvai /okh 6oK€t (fropTiKOS aKeueau tolovt4ol(tl \pr\crdai. ' Use bronze only for instruments, for it seems laboured ornamentation to use vessels of it.' We have, however, a good many specimens of vessels which prove that physicians did not adhere to this advice. We know too that certain medicaments were intentionally stored in copper vessels. Scribonius says: Deinde in patella aeris Cyprii super carbones posita infervescit, donee mellis habeat non nimium liquidi spissi- tudinem atque ita reponitur puxide aeris Cyprii (Composi- tionesy xxxvii). Pure copper was occasionally used for instruments, and of these we have a few remaining, and vessels and instru- ments of it are frequently mentioned: ' Oportet autem moveri aquam ipsam rudicula vel spathomela aeris rubri' (Marcellus, De Medicamentis, xiv. 44). Coins were frequently made of brass (opcCxakKos, orichalcum, aurichalcum), a mixture of copper, tin, and zinc, and in Pompeii there have been found two scalpel handles of brass composed of 25 per cent, of zinc and 75 per cent, of copper. The copper was got