1919. No. I. GRECO-ROMAN AND ARABIC BRONZE INSTRUMENTS. I3 
handles have often — but not always — the form of a myrtle-leaf intended 
for stump dissection. Silver was not the common material for a surgical 
instrument handle but was often used as damaskeened ornaments in the 
bronze. But that silver also was used alone we know from the mocking 
speech of Lukianos on surgeons »who tried to overawe the public by 
their instruments of gold and silver, which they did not understand the 
use of«. 
I will now consider some instruments with more detail as to their 
probable use. 
The instruments Pl. II 7 and 8 were not originally made for surgical 
use: a bronze handle has on either end a two pronged fork with blunt 
nearly joined points. At first I did not see what could have been the 
use of these two instruments; but Dr. Med. Fredrik Grón told me that in 
1913 he saw a similar instrument in the greatest archaeological museum 
of France at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in the celebrated collection of surgical 
instruments after the above (p. 7 foot note) mentioned Roman oculist Cajus 
Firmius Severus, who lived in Rheims at the time of Marc Aurel. This 
bifurcated instrument, which had not attracted my attention when I saw 
the collection r9 years ago, was labelled »une navette à filocher«! — a 
net shuttle. In a very interesting and beautifully illustrated book by the 
English collector Dr. J. S. Milne of Hartlepool »Surgical Instruments in 
Greek and Roman Times« (Oxford 1907) there is an illustration of a similar 
instrument which the author, because it resembles the Roman netting needle, 
believes has come by a fallacy among his surgical bifurcated probes. »In its 
typical shape the Roman netting needle has the forks in two plans at right 
angles to each other«. This is even the case with PI. II, 8 and nearly with 7 
where the angles are 70° and 1109. The instrument may have been called by 
the Romans »furca retiaria«, because by the Greeks it was certainly called 
ynin or yn&ort0» — but it had probably been used also by other people 
round the Mediterrean since times immemorial; fishing nets are mentioned 
by Homer both in the Odyssey and in the Iliad. — I showed the instru- 
ments to an expert in netbinding; he found them very practical and on 
my question about the reason of the position of the plans of the 
forks, and the crossing of the points (see Pl. II, 8, beneath) he answered 
1 It is however possible that this netting needle has only come into the same case 
as the surgical instruments from Rheims by chance; neither by Deneffe nor by 
Milne is any such tool mentioned in their description, — That both the two Ustinov 
netting needles and those of Milne may have been admitted by chance or by mis- 
understanding cannot of course be denied; but as will be seen from the folloving state- 
ment it is far more likely that the surgeons themselves have deliberately chosen these 
useful tools for their work. 
