‘Then the veins which have been drawn upon ought to be replaced with the back of a specillum.’
In sloughing ulcer of the bladder it is used to separate the lips of the perineal wound:
Quod si antequam vesica purgata est orae se glutinarunt, dolorque et inflammatio redierunt, vulnus digitis vel averso specillo diducendum est (VII. xxvii).
‘But, if before the bladder has become cleansed the lips unite and pain and inflammation have returned, the wound is to be separated with the fingers or the back of a specillum.’
We shall next proceed to discuss the other end of the ear specillum. This was a simple probe. It had no nucleus. In his Lexicon Galen defines it thus:
Ἀπυρομήλῃ· τῇ πυρῆνα μὴ ἐχούσῃ τούτεστι τῇ μηλωτρίδι.
‘Probe without olivary enlargement—that is to say “the ear specillum”.’
Not only was its tip not expanded into a nucleus, it was actually sharp. Galen (xiv. 787) treating of fistula in ano, says in non-perforating fistulae we perforate all the sound flesh with the sharp end of an ear probe (τῷ ὀξεῖ τῆς μηλωτίδος). The chief use of an ear probe in aural work was to instil liquids into the ear. A large ball of wool saturated with the liquid was wrapped round the middle of the probe, and on squeezing this the liquid ran down and dropped into the meatus. There are many mediaeval illustrations showing the ear probe used in this fashion. Sometimes, however, we read of the tip of the probe being wrapped in a small ball of wool, which was dipped in some sticky substance to extract foreign bodies from the ear. Galen (xii. 689) says foreign bodies may be removed thus by a probe dipped in resin.
The ear probe seems to have been much used for probing wounds and fistulae when a very slender instrument was required. Galen (ii. 581), in describing the torcular Herophili, says:
‘And in the double passage you may be able to insert some of the slender instruments you have at hand, a double ended probe—a ‘double-olivary’ if you prefer to call it so—or if something smaller be necessary even an ear specillum’ (καὶ μηλωτρίδα).