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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    woman consequently fails to conceive, take small soft feathers and tie them together, and foment the uterus as we do the eyes. Make the feathers even at the tips and tie the ends with a very fine thread, and anoint with much rosaceum. Also place the patient on her back on a couch, and place a pillow under the loins, and, the woman's thighs being extended and separated, insert a sound and turn it to this side and that till it project.' In all these cases there is no special instrument desig- nated as being used for a uterine sound, only the spathomele (v-nd\€LiTTpov) and the olivary probe named. With both of these we have met before. However, I have thought it of historical interest to cast these passages together. It will also clear the way for the discussion of other instruments, whose use is entirely reserved for the purpose of dilation of the cervix. A more questionable use of the sound is referred to by many authors. During the Empire the death of the j foetus was frequently procured both by abortifacients and j instruments. Frequent references to the use of drugs for this purpose may be found in the lay writers such as i Juvenal and Suetonius (Domitian), and the later medical I authors do not hesitate to describe the composition of | abortifacient pessaries. It will be remembered that the Hippocratic oath specially forbids this practice. Uterine Dilators—Solid, graduated wooden. Greek, SiaoTO/otcor/ns, fxrjkyjv ttjv biaariWovaav—top SiaoroAea |(Galen, Lexicon). Besides the ordinary probes, which we have just seen that jjHippocrates used occasionally for dilating the os, we have ijfrequent mention made of a special variety of dilators .which, although they are called [x-qXr] by Hippocrates, are •not, strictly speaking, probes or sounds, but a graduated set bf dilators of wood, tin, or lead. They correspond, in fact, Jibo our Hegar's dilators. Hippocrates describes these dilators (ii. 799). The patient MILNE Q.