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)

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    'Incise the outer integument between the ribs with a bellied scalpel.' ^Tr]6o€Lbrj9 means rounded like the breast of a woman. Galen translates it in his lexicon tw o-juiAiw larpiKy yao-rpooba, ' the bellied surgical knife.' It is quite a serviceable instru- ment for several kinds of work, and it seems to have been a common form. Three out of the six scalpels depicted in the votive tablet from the Acropolis are of this form, and there are now in the Naples Museum four others of the same shape as the one described by Vulpes. These have blades of steel and handles of bronze. The figures of three of these (PI. V, figs. 3-6), show the gradual evolution from a common scalpel into the bellied form. I have seen a scalpel with a blade similar to PI. V, fig. 3 in use in Scotland for castrating piglings and calves. Scarificator for wet cupping. Paul (VI. xli) says that some have conceived for the purpose of scarifying before wet cupping an instrument compounded of three blades joined together in such a way that at one stroke three scarifications are made: Tives ovv €TT€v6rj(rav opyavov 7rpo? Tovro, rpCa a-pikCa Xcra (ev£avT€S dfxov, 07T(dj rfj pud. iTTifiokfi rpet? yivoivro biaipiaets. Paul says he prefers a single scalpel. What the precise shape of scalpel used was we cannot say, but it would most likely be one of the bellied forms. Hippocrates, in his treatise Be Medico, says that the lancets used in wet cupping should be rounded and not too narrow at the tip (napLTrvkois e£ aKpov /xr) ACrjv ore^ois). Even if KayLTivkos meant curved and not bellied it would not be certain that it was meant to cut on the convex side of the blade. The words of Hippocrates imply at any rate a blade with a rounded, not sharp point (i. 62). Straight sharp-pointed bistoury. Greek, a-KoXo'nopla\aLpiov, aKokoinov; Latin, scalpellus. The etymology of the term aKoXo-no^xayaipiov as applied to