This is a very comprehensive class. The original specillum was no doubt a simple sound. Varro thus defines the specillum: ‘Quo oculos inunguimus quibus specimus specillum est. Graecis μήλη dicitur.’ Thus it meant a probe or sound.
μήλη is probably derived from μῆλον, an apple or fruit, from the olivary enlargement at the end of a sound.
The term ὑπάλειπτρον, which is frequently used by Hippocrates, originally meant an ointment spatula, being derived from ὑπαλείφω, to spread ointment. But the custom of combining two instruments on one shaft gradually led to the application of these terms, especially the term specillum, to denote a large variety of instruments.
The name κοπάριον is evidently derived from the resemblance of the probe to the pestle, which was such a frequent utensil in Greek homes. It is connected with κόπανον, ‘pestle,’ κοπανιστήριον, ‘mortar,’ and κοπανίζω, ‘bray,’ and κοπτάριον, a medicament pounded in a mortar (Dioscorides, iv. 190). The exact significance of the term κοπάριον is sometimes difficult to determine. It is easy to prove that in general it is merely a sound. Thus Paul (VI. lxxviii), in quoting a passage from Hippocrates, substitutes κοπάριον for the word μήλη, which Hippocrates uses to denote the sound used for exploring a fistula. Throughout this chapter, in which the word occurs ten times in all, Briau translates it by ‘manche du scalpel’, although the whole context shows that a probe is meant. Even where it is spoken of as an eyed probe (διὰ τετρημένου κοπαρίου) Briau translates it by ‘au moyen du manche percé d’un scalpel’, an expression which is meaningless to a surgeon. Briau evidently thinks it is derived from κόπτω, and at times it seems as if it might denote a cutting instrument. Thus Adams, in a note to Paul, VI. lxxvii, says, ‘if the κοπάριον, however, was the same as the μήλη or specillum it was evidently used for cutting with, as well as for cutting upon’, and on one occasion (Paul, VI. lxxx) he translates κοπάριον by ‘knife’. Liddell and Scott translate it as ‘a small knife’. A careful examination of those passages where it seems to indicate a cutting instrument will show, however, that only blunt dissection, which was frequently performed with the spatula end of a probe, is meant. I am quite convinced that the word κοπάριον is only a late Greek term for the earlier μήλη, and means essentially a sound, and not a knife. While on this subject we may note that throughout the codices and texts there is great confusion between words meaning probe and words meaning scalpel. The proper forms σμίλη, ‘scalpel,’ and μήλη, ‘probe,’ are distinct, but the inferior reading σμήλη is frequent in both codices and texts as a bastard, for σμίλη is often written σμήλη incorrectly, and μήλη often becomes σμήλη, just as μικρός is written σμικρός. Thus in Paul (VI. viii), where the author is describing the eversion of the eyelid by means of the olivary point of a probe (τῷ πυρῆνι τῆς μήλης), four codices and the Aldine and Basle texts read σμήλης, two codices read σμύλης, one reads μήλης, four μίλης, and Briau reads σμίλης. In a case like this only a knowledge of surgery can tell us whether a probe or scalpel is meant.
The Specillum as a Sound.
The ancients were fully aware of the value of the information to be gained by searching the recesses of a lesion with a rod of metal. Celsus (v. 28) says regarding fistulae:
Ante omnia autem demitti specillum in fistulam convenit, ut quo tendat et quam alte perveniat scire possimus; simul etiam protinus humida an siccior sit: quod extracto specillo patet. Si vero os in vicino est id quoque disci potest si iam necne eo fistula penetraverit et quatenus nocuerit; nam si molle est quod ultimo specillo contingitur, intra carnem adhuc vitium est, si magis id renititur, ad os ventum est. Ibi deinde si labitur specillum, nondum caries est: si non labitur sed aequali innititur, caries quidem, verum adhuc levis est: si inaequale quoque et asperum subest, vehementius os exesum est. At cartilago ubi subsit, ipsa sedes docet; perventumque esse ad eam ex renisu patet.
‘But first it is well to put a probe into the fistula to learn where it goes and how deeply it reaches, also whether it is moist or rather dry as is evident when the probe is withdrawn. Further, if there be bone adjacent, it is possible to learn whether the fistula has entered it or not and how deeply it has caused disease. For if the part is soft which is reached by the end of the probe the disease is still intermuscular; if the resistance be greater it has reached the bone: if there the probe slip there is as yet no caries. If it does not slip but meets with a uniform resistance there is indeed caries, but it is as yet slight. If what is below is uneven and rough the bone is seriously eroded, and whether there is cartilage below will be known by the situation, and if the disease has reached it will be evident from the resistance.’
These remarks show that with the probe the ancients had cultivated the tactus eruditus to a high degree, and the remarks of Aetius and Paul are equally to the point.
The tips of the probes which have survived vary considerably in size and shape. Some have a point which is almost sharp like a stylet; in others the natural thickness of the shaft is kept right to the tip, which is simply rounded off or there is an oval enlargement like that on our olivary probes and sounds. In rare cases the enlargement is globular. The oval enlargement was named by the Greeks πυρήν, which means ‘olive-kernel’. The sixteenth-century translators uniformly render this by ‘nucleus’, which is a convenient term to use, but it has no classical Latin authority. Indeed, there is no classical Latin equivalent used by medical authors. Theodorus Priscianus uses baca (sic), a berry, and bacula, little berry, and in the Additamenta (I. viii. 21, ed. Rose) he uses the transliteration pyrena meles. But this is African Latin.