ÉTUI, ETC.
Portable Outfit.
After describing the larger apparatus necessary for the equipment of the surgery, Hippocrates mentions a portable equipment for use on journeys:
‘Have also another apparatus ready to hand for journeys, simply prepared, and handy too by method of arrangement, for one cannot overhaul everything’ (i. 72).
The component parts of this portable outfit so far known to us are as follows:
The scalpels of different shapes seem to have been carried in boxes, probably wooden, which opened in two halves like a modern mathematical instrument box. In these the scalpels lay head and tail, separated from each other by small fixed partitions. A box of scalpels of this kind is represented in a marble votive tablet which was found on the Acropolis on the site of the Temple of Aesculapius. A similar box with different instruments is seen in a donarium in the Capitoline Museum. The probes and forceps were carried in cylindrical cases like those in which the scribes carried their pens. A good many of these have come down to us. From the fact that in the grave of the surgeon of Paris there were found two buckles, it is probable that there had been buried along with the instruments a case of leather or some such perishable material, which had been used to contain instruments, but which had disappeared when the grave was opened. There have also been found boxes of various shapes for containing medicaments, cylindrical boxes for drugs in sticks, boxes divided into little partitions for drugs in semi-solid form, and other boxes for powders.
Portable Probe Cases.
The spatulae, sounds, hooks, and forceps were carried about in a cylindrical case of bronze. Several of these étui have been found containing instruments. They average 18 cm. in length and 1·5 cm. in diameter. The lid lifts off. One in the museum at Lausanne was found in a Roman conduit at Bosséaz and contained a cyathiscomele of the usual type (Bonstetten, Recueil des Antiqq. Suisses, pl. xii, figs. 11 and 12). A case exactly similar to the above containing a cyathiscomele and a toothed vulsellum was found in the Rhine Valley. Another case of the same kind was found at Bregenz. It contained a long ligula, a spathomele, a cyathiscomele, and a double olivary probe.
In the Naples Museum are four of these cases, three of which were found in Pompeii and one in Herculaneum. One of these is a plain cylindrical case 18 cm. long and 1·5 in diameter. It contained instruments ([Pl. LIII, fig. 1]). Another case is ornamented with raised rings. It was found in the House of the Physician, and contained six specilla of different kinds and a vulsellum. A third is of similar size and shape, but it is considerably destroyed by oxidation, and it is adherent to a rectangular slab of black stone which had been used for mixing medicaments. Through the cracks in the case there may be seen the probes which it contains. The case from Herculaneum is a plain cylindrical case 19 cm. long and 2 cm. in diameter.