ANCIENT SURGERY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 30 May 1914, Page 2

ANCIENT SURGERY.

So many surprising, archaeological discoveries are being made just now that it is becoming really dangerous to boast about the modernity of anything, and we shall probably soon be driven definitely to the conclusion that there is, after all, "nothing new under the sun." The science of surgery has been claimed to be an exclusively modern development; medicine, it was admitted, had its Aesculapius and its Galen, but surgery was a nineteenth century product. Unfortunately fox this theory, a set of thn-ty-seven very remarkable Greek surgical instruments has just been unearthed near the site of Kolophon, in lonia. The-date of the find is somewhat uncertain, but is placed about the first or second century of the present era, if not before. Among the collection, which anticipates a number of supposed modern discoveries, there is to be noted a pair of polypus forceps for removing growths, another for extracting arrow and lance heads, a tenacula or sharp hook, similar to those in every-day use, a number of catheters of beautiful workmanship, a cautery for burning wounds, some cupping-vessels, a couple of probes just like the modern ■ones, two spatulae or spoons, and perhaps most interest of all, a "drill-bow" for operating a. skull trephine, and an elevator for raising pieces of depressed bono. These two last-named discoveries show that brain surgery is far from being the recent development it is supposed to be, and that, in fact, trephining or trepanning is a very ancient operation. In classic times, however, this operation was not Undertaken, as now, to relieve the pressure from an abscess or effusion of blood, but to allow exit to an evil spirit supposed to be troubling an insane or epileptic patient. One interesting fact about the collection is the use of bronze. The blades of the knives were originally of steel, but this metal has been almost completely destroyed in every case by oxidation. The custom of using bronze (or stone) for knives' and other implements is said to have been followed, not because iron was unknown, but because that metal was held in superstitious awe. Even the use of anaesthetics was not unknown to the Greek and Roman surgeons, mandragora juice and atropin being used by them for this purpose. Antiseptics were apparently not used by them, but it is thought that the purity of the atmosphere in which they worked rendered these unnecessary.