Hippocrates only mentions three of these: “Of all the mechanical instruments used by men the most powerful are these three, the winch, the lever and the wedge.” He does not mention the screw, though it is most likely that the Greeks of his time knew of it, but we shall see that later the Greeks applied it, as in the machine of Nymphodorus, to generate power for reducing dislocations.
Hippocrates does not in this passage refer to the use of the pulley, though in another place he mentions it in connection with the treatment of fracture of the spine, and we shall see several instances of its use for converting the direction of motion in machines for the reduction of dislocations.
In one of these, the machine of Fabrus, a system of pulleys is arranged to give a considerable increase of power, so that it is not unlikely that block and tackle arranged to multiply power would be used as well, although we have no direct description of such.
We may note that Scultetus (Tab. xxi) illustrates a block and tackle which he says that he has taken from Vitruvius, Lib. 10, ch. x, and which he says was in use in his day for the reduction of dislocations.
As many of the surgeons were “periodeutae,” traveling about from place to place, it was not possible for them to carry about the heavy contrivances that the practitioner settled in a large town could have at his command, but Hippocrates shows how to improvise imitations of these, and small winches which could be attached to such household implements as ladders were carried as part of the portable outfit.
The Scamnum, or Bench, of Hippocrates. This contrivance, of which the first account ([Fig. 10]) is given by the father of medicine, was used by all succeeding ancient surgeons, and Scultetus shows many figures of it in actual use in his time. Galen had a very high opinion of it. He says that all varieties of dislocation could be reduced by it.
Hippocrates says that “the best thing for any physician who practices in a populous city is to have prepared a proper wooden machine with all the mechanical powers applicable in cases of fractures and dislocations, both for making extension and for levering.
“For this purpose, it will be sufficient to possess a board resembling in length, breadth, and thickness, the quadrangular threshing boards made of oak.
“It should be six cubits, or a little more, in length, and about two cubits in breadth. A foot will be sufficient thickness for it.