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)

    47/316 (page 31)
    In the curious pseudo-Hippocratic treatise (i. 463) a knife to fix on the thumb and dismember a foetus in utero is mentioned: *Ex6LV XPV Kpos ra TOtavra kol ovvya Zttl tw baKTvku* rai /xeyaA.0). Kal biekoi Ta Ztjei'tyKtiu tcls x^P«? kt^- c If, however, the foetus be dead and remain, and cannot either spontaneously or with the aid of drugs come away in the natural manner, having liberally anointed the hand with cerate and inserted it in the uterus endeavour to separate the shoulders from the neck with the thumb. It is necessary to have for this a ' claw' upon the thumb and, the amputation having been performed, to extract the arms and, again inserting the hand, to open the abdomen and, having done so to remove the intestines, &c.' An instrument answering to this description is still in use by veterinary surgeons (PL VII, fig. 1), but the forefinger, and not the thumb, is used. A scalpel blade is mounted on a ring and the forefinger is passed through the ring. Foals and calves are in this way easily dismembered in exactly the same way as is described by Hippocrates. The name of the instrument of Hippocrates would rather indicate that its blade was curved, but as the modern instrument has a probe point I have included it in this class. It is called by Tertullian the ' ring knife'—' cum annulo cultrato (var. lect. anulocultro) quo intus membra caeduntur anxio arbitrio ' (De Anima, 26). I. B (a) Straight blade cutting on two edges, sharp-pointed. (1) Galen's ' long' dissecting knife. (2) Phlebotome. (3) Lithotome. (4) Polypus knife. Galen s knife for opening the vertebral canal. In his description of the dissection of the spine Gralen describes a large straight two-edged knife (ii. 682): KadLrjfJLi to irp6fxr]K€s ixa^a^piov, ovto) yap avro KaA<3 hvo irkevpas 0^€ias %)(OV €7K TOV 7TC/3OT09 Ct? fxCaV KOpV(pr]V O.Vr]KQV(TaS,