All the surgical instruments found in the provinces have an air de famille which would lead one to suppose that they had been manufactured in Italy, but this is not certain. The ointment slabs, however, are rarely of the stone of the country in which they are found. On the other hand, the orthographical faults on the oculists’ seals would indicate that they were cut in the provinces. Wherever possible two instruments are combined into one. Thus very few of the probes are simple instruments but carry a spatula, a scoop or spoon, an eye, or a hook, at the opposite end. Vulsella are more difficult to combine with other instruments, but here again we meet with combinations such as vulsella at one end and scoop, raspatory, or probe, at the other. The typical scalpel handle carries at the end opposite the blade a spatula for blunt dissection. We have needles at one end and probes, scalpel blades, &c., at the other end of a handle. This combination of two instruments in one is still in use in our day. We must notice the fact that the majority of instruments we know were all of metal, not folding into hollow handles of wood, bone, &c., as the instruments of a decade ago did, so that they were easily cleaned. In fact we shall see that where the scalpel and handle were not forged in one piece they were united by something very like our aseptic joint. Hippocrates insists on the importance of keeping everything in the surgery absolutely clean.
A few instruments bear the image of deities connected with medicine, or attributes of these. The figures of Aesculapius and his daughter Hygeia are found on medicament boxes, the former with the serpent entwining his staff, the latter feeding a serpent from a bowl. The serpent is sometimes found on a probe. A uterine dilator from Pompeii also carries it. A probe surmounted by a double serpent (caduceus form) was found in the Roman Hospital at Baden. Two scalpels in the Naples Museum carry on their ends the head of Minerva Medica. The quadrivalve speculum in the Naples Museum has each end of the crossbar tipped with a fine image of a ram’s head. There is also a medicine shovel with the same symbol. Illustrations of these instruments will be found later.
Preservation.
Some of the instruments of silver retain their brightness as when they were made, but under certain circumstances a considerable amount of oxidation takes place, and then they have a thick black coating. Very few bronze articles are found to have retained their colour. In volcanic districts the various sulphur compounds formed give rise to a beautiful patina of varying shades of green and blue, sometimes so evenly distributed as to resemble enamel. This, when fine, much enhances the value of the article.
Articles of iron are sometimes but little destroyed. It is surprising in how good condition the iron or steel may be. The bow of a shears is sometimes quite springy. In some cases a steel or iron article is often represented by a mass of oxide bearing some resemblance to the original. In others only a shapeless mass of oxide remains.
Finds of Instruments.
Finds of ancient surgical instruments, though not by any means common, are still sufficiently numerous for specimens to have found their way into most of our larger museums; and private collectors have here and there acquired considerable numbers. The most prolific source has been the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, which have now been systematically pursued for nearly three hundred years, while the objects found have been deposited in the National Museum at Naples. In 1818 a physician’s house with a large number of surgical instruments was discovered in the Strada del Consulate of Pompeii, and two chemists’ shops have also been found with instruments in them. Besides these there is a large number of instruments from other finds in the two buried cities.
The custom of burying personal effects along with the ashes of a deceased person, which prevailed among the Romans from the second to the fourth century, has preserved to us a number of interesting finds. In 1880 M. Tolouse, a civil engineer in Paris, in executing some alterations in the neighbourhood of the Avenue Choisy, discovered the grave of a surgeon, containing a bronze pot full of surgical instruments. Among these were numerous forceps and vulsella, ointment tubes, bleeding cup, scalpel handles for blades of steel, probes, and spatulae. Sixty-six coins of the reigns of Tetricus I and II showed that the grave belonged to the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. The find was reported by M. Tolouse in a volume entitled Mes fouilles dans le sol du vieux Paris (Paris, 1888). In 1892 the find was fully described by Professor Deneffe of Ghent, in the Revue Archéologique, under the title ‘Notice descriptive sur une trousse de médecin au IIIme siècle’, and reprinted, with photogravures, in 1893 in a monograph Étude sur la trousse d’un chirurgien Gallo-Romain du IIIme siècle (Antwerp, 1893). It is convenient to refer to this find as that of the ‘Surgeon of Paris’. Another grave containing surgical instruments was found at Wancennes in the canton of Beauraing, Namur, in a cemetery of the first or second century. The instruments are now in the Archaeological Museum at Namur (Deneffe, op. cit., p. 35).
In 1854 there were discovered at Rheims the remnants of a wooden chest containing two little iron jars for ointments, several scalpel handles, a small drill, eight handles for needles, five hooks (two blunt and three sharp), two balances, various probes and spatulae, seven forceps, medicament box, a mortar, and a seal showing that the instruments had belonged to an oculist named Gaius Firmius Severus. The instruments are all of the most beautiful pattern and finish, several being finely inlaid with silver. Some coins of the reigns of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius showed that the interment belonged to the end of the third century.