It is evident that it is quite a different instrument from the staphylocaustus (q. v.), which we are specially told had more than one hollow and was a grasping instrument like a forceps. The present instrument is for applying liquids, and was apparently of the form of a spoon. Fabricius describes and figures such an instrument. It is a small round spoon with a long handle.
CHAPTER V
FORCEPS
Epilation Forceps.
Greek, τριχολαβίς, τριχολάβιον (== τριχολαβίδιον); Latin, vulsella.
The removal of the hair from the face for cosmetic purposes is a custom which has come down to us from prehistoric times, and seems to have been very prevalent among all primitive races. In the bronze age the method by which this was accomplished seems to have been to fix the hairs with a broad jawed forceps and cut them off close to the skin by means of a knife or ‘razor’. Thus did primitive men ‘shave’, and very often in early bronze age graves in Scandinavia and in the Swiss lake-dwelling excavations these forceps and razors are found together. No doubt also epilation proper was practised occasionally, but the majority of the prehistoric forceps are not for epilation but for fixing the hairs to allow the knife to divide them close to the skin. At a later time, with the more common use of steel, the Greeks and Romans shaved as we do, and epilation proper was practised for removing superfluous hairs from the face and also to remove trichiasis. Aristophanes, a contemporary of Hippocrates (Ran. 516, Lys. 89, 151), Persius (iv. 37) and Juvenal (vii. 114) refer to the depilation of the pubes as being common among certain classes, and the early Christian Fathers deplore the practice. See also the remarks of Suetonius on the conduct of Domitian (xxii). Prosper Alpinus, who visited Egypt in the sixteenth century and wrote an interesting book on the state of medicine in that country, found the custom still prevalent among the Egyptian women, and thus explains the object with which it was practised (Medicina Aegyptiorum, cap. III. xv):
A pulveribus, qui Aegyptiis fere toto anno ventorum terraeque siccitatis occasione perpetuo familiares existunt, atque ab assiduis sudoribus quibus coeli calore omnia corpora continue abundant, illuvieque quadam immunda redduntur, atque foetentia, ex quo pleraque ipsorum et foetere et pediculis abundare solent. Balneis omnes hi populi utuntur familiarissime pro corporum abstersione, maximeque mulieres, quibus curae magis est corpora ipsarum pulchriora facere ipsorum, illuviem et foetorem corrigentes, ut cariores sint suis viris. Eae etenim saepissime corpora in iis lavant, at mundant ab illuvie, perlotaque variis ornant odoribus ut recte unguentis oleant. Ac veluti Italae mulieres atque aliarum multarum etiam nationum ad capillorum facieique omne cultum adhibent studium, ita Aegyptiae capillorum cultum negligunt ex consuetudine omnes capillos in bursam serico panno paratam concludentes, ac ad pudendorum abditarumque corporis partium ornatum omnem diligentiam adhibent. Pudendis igitur tota cura in balneis ab iis adhibetur. Ea siquidem in primis lavant, pilisque nudant, locaque pudendorum perpetuo glabra gestant, turpeque ibi est mulierum pilis obsitam vulvam habere. Demum lotas eas partes glabrasque effectas variis unguentis etiam exornant.
The custom survived in France and Italy in the sixteenth century.