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A Set of Roman Medical Instruments from Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Ralph Jackson
Ralph Jackson
Affiliation:
Dept. of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities, British Museum
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Extract

In 1968 a fine and extensive group of Roman surgical and medical instruments (PL. XI) was purchased by the British Museum from a London antiquity dealer. With one or perhaps two exceptions (Nos. 39, 33 below) there is little doubt that they comprise a surgeon's instrumentarium which includes many normal types but also some very rare objects: the three catheters are the largest set of such instruments to be found; the speculum is only the third complete provenanced example of its type, while the bone chisels and sharp spoon have few known parallels; the double blunt hook is one of the finest examples of this rare class of object; the handled needles significantly increase the number of such specialist instruments; the small tanged cautery is one of the very few survivors of a type of instrument that was extremely common in Roman surgery: and the segmented form of one of the medicine boxes is as yet unparallelled.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 17 , November 1986 , pp. 119 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © Ralph Jackson 1986. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Brit. Mus. registration nos. GR 1968,6–26, 1–39. At the time of writing they are on display in the ‘Greek and Roman Life’ room of the British Museum.

2 Künzl, E., Medizinische Instrumente aus Sepulkralfunden der römischen Kaiserzeit (Bonn, 1983)Google Scholar (off-printed from Bonner Jahrbücher clxxxii (1982), 1ff.).

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12 ibid., vii, 6, 4.

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33 Small samples of the mineralised wood fragments from scalpel handles Nos. 1 and 2 were sent for examination to the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Dr Paula Rudall kindly reported on these: ‘The wood is in too poor a condition to permit an exact identification. However, it is certainly a hard-wood (not a conifer) and the vessels are clearly visible with marked spiral thickenings on their walls, although very little other structure remains. This eliminates woods with spiral thickenings absent, such as Box, Olive, Ash or Oak. The most likely candidates are Lime (Tilia sp.), Sycamore or Maple (Acer sp.), Cherry (Prunus sp.) or Spindle (Euonymus sp.), but several other woods have spiral thickenings and cannot be ruled out. (eg. Pear, Pyrus sp., and other Rosaceae and Elm, Ulmus sp.)’.

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40 ibid., 157.

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52 op. cit. (note 6), vii, 30, 2.

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54 Vulpes, op. cit. (note 31), pl. V, fig. IV; Møller-Christensen, op. cit. (note 53), 129–130, fig. 197.

55 Künzl, op. cit. (note 2), fig. 86, 4.

56 Milne, op. cit. (note 13), 94, pl. XXVII, 1. Recent examination of this instrument has confirmed the terminal as an elevator, not a rugine as Milne believed.

57 Prähistorische Staatssammlung, München, Inv. no. 1951 440.

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59 ibid., fig. 10, i; Deneffe, op. cit. (note 48), pl. 5, no. 1.

60 Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Köln, Inv. nos. Lü 194, and 762.

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64 Köln, Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Inv. no. Lü. 194.

65 London, Museum of London, 19887.

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72 SF 2487. Miss D. French kindly allowed me to examine this instrument.

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78 op. cit. (note 6), vii, 31, 2–3.

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80 The set of surgical instruments, of which the double hook is a part, was donated to the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge in 1921/22. Found in Italy in the late nineteenth century, it is believed to have come from a tomb either in the Campania or in the vicinity of Rome. Information kindly supplied by Mr W. Thompson.

81 Subsequent to its original manufacture the Bingen double hook was modified, apparently to suit a changed role. A small hole was punched through each of the hooks and one hook was turned back on itself changing the shape of the instrument from an elongated Z to an elongated U. It may have been used as a small makeshift bow for a simple drill or the crown trephines found in the set.

82 op. cit. (note 6), viii, 3, 8.

83 ibid., viii, 3, 8–9.

84 ibid., viii, 4, 17.

85 ibid., viii, 3.

86 ibid., viii, 3, 3–4.

87 referred to above, p. 143.

88 Celsus, op. cit. (note 6), viii, 4, 12.

89 ibid., viii, 4, 6.

90 ibid., viii, io, 7.

91 ibid., viii, 4, 14.

92 Paulus Aegineta, op. cit. (note 37), VI, xliii.

93 ibid., VI, xciii.

94 Galen, ii, 687, transcribed by Milne, op. cit. (note 13), 123.

95 Vulpes, op. cit. (note 31), pl. VII, fig. VIII.

96 Como, op. cit. (note 4), fig. 6, nos. 6, 7, 12, 13.

97 Künzl, op. cit. (note 2), fig. 11, 4.

98 op. cit. (note 31), pl. VII, fig. VII.

99 op. cit. (note 13), pl. XLI, 2.

100 Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn.

101 Galen, transcribed in Milne, op. cit. (note 13), 150.

102 See, for instance, Scultetus' illustration of seventeenth-century anal and vaginal specula in Tabanelli, op. cit. (note 7), pl. CXVI.

103 op. cit. (note 13), 149.

104 op. cit. (note 37), VI, lxxviii; an amended reading by Milne, op. cit. (note 13), 149.

105 Martial, Epigrams, English translation by W.C.A. Ker, Loeb Classical Library, XIV, lxxvi.

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111 Galen, xiv, 787, transcribed by Milne, op. cit. (note 13), 143.

112 op. cit. (note 6), vii, 26, 1.

113 op. cit. (note 7), pl. LXII.

114 op. cit. (note 37), VI, lix.

115 ibid., VI, lix.

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126 Paulus Aegineta, op. cit. (note 37), VI, xxi; an amended reading by Milne, op. cit. (note 13), 70.

127 op. cit. (note 123).

128 Künzl, op. cit. (note 2), 26–7, fig. 4, second from right. This needle is from a set of instruments found in the palaestra with the skeletons of a number of victims of the AD 79 catastrophe.

129 Hassel and Künzl, op. cit. (note 28), pl. III, 10.

130 Künzl, op. cit. (note 2), fig. 10, 4.

131 e.g. Naples, Mus. Naz., Inv. no. 116444A, found in a cylindrical probe box with six other probes and needles; and Pompeii Antiquarium, Inv. no. 10123, from Pompeii, Region II, Insula II, ‘vicino al tempietto, 1953'.

132 op. cit. (note 13), pl. XVI, 7.

133 op. cit. (note 48), pl. 5, 1.

134 op. cit. (note 6), vii, 7, 12.

135 ibid., vii, 7, 8?.

136 ibid., vii, 8, 3.

137 op. cit. (note 6).

138 Bennion, op. cit. (note 75), 185.

139 See Milne, op. cit. (note 13), 117–120.

140 Vulpes, op. cit. (note 31), pl. VII, figs. X-XIII; Tabanelli, op. cit. (note 7), pl. LXII.

141 See Milne, op. cit. (note 13), 119.

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163 Newport Museum, D2 832, 840.

164 Mainz, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Inv. no. 0.38226.

165 British Museum PRB DR 1–63.

166 Scientific examination (see p. 164 below) has revealed that spatula probe No. 33 may have become incorporated in the set after its discovery.

167 Michaelides, op. cit. (note 158), fig. 1, 7–13.

168 Künzl, op. cit. (note 2), fig. 3.

169 see eg. Milne, op. cit. (note 13), pls. XII–XV.

170 Deneffe, op. cit. (note 48), pl. 4, 14.

171 Hassel and Künzl, op. cit. (note 28), pl. II, 3.

172 Künzl, op. cit. (note 2), figs. 95–6.

173 ibid., fig. 76.

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176 eg. Milne, op. cit. (note 13), pl. LII; Tabanelli, op. cit. (note 7), pls. CXVIII, CXIX.

177 Michaelides, op. cit. (note 158), fig. 1, 1–3, 5.

178 eg. Tabanelli, op. cit. (note 7), pl. CXXIII.

179 eg. Kiinzl, op. cit. (note 2), fig. 43 (Vermand), fig. 85 (Luzzi), fig. 95 (Wehringen), p.102 (Mérida).

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186 professor G. Eglinton of the Organic Geochemistry Unit at the University of Bristol has kindly agreed to carry out further analysis of the material.

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