There is further an instrument for tapping the dropsical, described by Celsus[542] and Paulus Ægineta. It was somewhat altered in the middle of the seventeenth century by Petit.
An instrument suited to carry off the dropsical humours by a little at a time on successive days, as Celsus and Paulus Ægineta recommended, has also been dug up. Rust and hard earth, which cannot safely be removed, have blocked up the canal of the relic, and rendered conclusions less certain.[543]
“The probe, ‘specillum,’ μήλη, is reputed by Cicero to have been invented by the Arcadian Apollo, who also was the first to bind up a wound. Seven varieties are figured in the work of Professor Vulpes in one plate, with ends obtuse, spoon-shaped, flat and oval, flat and square, flat and divided. The catheter of the ancients is figured by the same writer. It was furnished with a bit of wood to be drawn out by a thread, to prevent the obstructive effects of capillary attraction, and to fetch the urine after it when withdrawn. It is of bronze, and elastic catheters seem to be of modern invention.” There are, or were in 1847, eighty-nine specimens of pincers in the Naples Museum.
Hooks, hamuli, cauterising instruments, a spatula, a silver lancet, a small spoon for examining a small quantity of blood after venesection. There are cupping vessels of a somewhat spherical shape, from which air was exhausted by burning a little tow. A fleam for bleeding horses just like that used at the present time, a bent lever of steel for raising the bones of the head in cases of depressed fracture. Professor Vulpes gives figures of eight steel or iron knives used for various surgical purposes, and of a small plate to be used as an actual cautery.
ANCIENT SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS.
Fig. 1. The Saw used by Carpenters. Fig. 2. A Small Saw. Fig. 3. The Modiolus, or Ancient Trephine. Fig. 4. The Terebra, or Trepan, called Abaptiston. Fig. 5. The Augur used by Carpenters. Fig. 6. The Terebra, or Trepan, which is turned round by a thong bound tight about its middle. Fig. 7. The Augur, or Trepan, which is turned round by a bow. Fig. 8. A Terebra, or Trepan, which is turned round by a thong on a cross-beam. Fig. 9. A Terebra, or Trepan, which has a ball in its upper end, by which it is turned round. Fig. 10. A Terebra, or Trepan, which is turned round by a cross piece of wood, or handle, on its upper end. (From Adams’ Hippocrates, vol. i.)
[Face p. 246.