Paul (VI. xc) says:
‘But if the bone is strong it is first to be perforated with that kind of perforators called abaptista (περιτρυπήσαντες ἀβαπτίστοις τοῖς λεγομένοις), which have certain eminences to prevent them sinking down to the membrane, and then with chisels we remove the bone not whole, but in pieces.’
The illustrations of drills given from Vidius ([Pl. XLII]) are really abaptista.
Saw.
Greek, πρίων, μαχαιρωτὸς πρίων (as if from μαχαιρόω); Latin, serrula.
The saw is very frequently mentioned in the description of operation on bone. Celsus (VII. xxxiii), in describing the amputation of a gangrenous limb, says:
Dein id serrula praecidendum est, quam proxime sanae carni etiam inhaerenti: ac tum frons ossis, quam serrula exasperavit, laevanda est.
And Paul says that in amputating a gangrenous limb the flesh ought to be retracted with a band lest it be torn by the saw. Saws were also used in cranial surgery. Hippocrates frequently mentions a saw (πρίων) in this connexion, but it is evident that he means the trephine, as he describes its circular motion. Paul, however, makes it quite clear that he means flat cranial saws, for he mentions both saws and trephines in one paragraph:
Ἤδη καὶ τῶν πριόνων τε καὶ χοινικίδων χειρουργίαι, κτλ.
‘The method of operating with saws and trephines is condemned by the moderns as a bad one’ (VI. xc).