SURGICAL SKILL OF THE ANCIENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 95, 25 April 1891, Page 4 (Supplement)

SURGICAL SKILL OF THE ANCIENTS.

From the excavations of Pompeii instruments have been found, both surgical and dental, almoisb identical with our own. In others, aa in the works of Hippocratos and in tho ' Susruta, , a commentary on the ' Yajur Veda' of the Hindoos, full descriptions are given of more than a hundred surgical instruments of steel, of many kinds of bandages, and the specifications for a splint), like the patented bamboo splint now in use by British army surgeons. ' Susruta ' also describes surgical operations which are claimed as crowning glories of Nineteenth century surgery. The surgical operation for the scone, and the rinoplastic, or that which consists in making an artificial nose from flesh and skin taken from bhe patient's own forehead, were fully kn,own and practised by the ancient Hjh doo. And, finally, the antiseptic treatment of wounds, one of the glories of modern surgery, is proved to be a rediscovery. Hippocrates, in his book on wounds, which is a small annual on this method of treatment, describes ib, and calls ib by the Greek word for non-pufcrescible.—Edward Berdoe, in the ' Century.'