1919. No. I. GRECO-ROMAN AND ARABIC BRONZE INSTRUMENTS. I5 
I will now direct your attention closer to the instrument Pl. II, 5 
the upper end of which is a sharp spoon 12 mm wide 6 mm deep; it has 
probably been used among other things to remove slap wound granulations. 
Above all, however, along the length of the sound from the base of the 
spoon downwards to the conic point of the sound there runs a very fine 
measure scale of transversal filed lines, which are partly more or less 
veiled by the layer of patina, and which in order to get it distinctly on the 
cliché, I have made distinct with zinc white. In the middle part, which 
is best preserved, are 24 division lines on a length of 24 mm; the division 
is not, however, absolutely regular, for within the same part are 18 divi- 
sion lines on a length of 18.5 mm. In the latter case it might be thought 
that a division of the attic dcxrviog was meant, which, however, ought to 
be exactly 19 mm. The division of twelve lends more probability to the 
supposition that it is the Roman »uncia« = 1/59 »pese — 24 mm which 
has been the point of departure. Whether the former or the latter point 
of view is chosen, the surgeon in .Ascalon has practically used a millimeter 
scale at least one millennium and a half before the invention of the metrical 
system during the great French Revolution. 
This instrument like the other sounds has among other things been 
used to localize foreign bodies in fistula and deep wounds; to-day we 
have the X-ray photography. 
As for sounds and spatula sounds it must be remembered that they 
were not always medical instruments. They were also used by painters 
in Preparing colours and by ladies in cosmetic manipulations. Instrument 
Pl. II, 1 was in my opinion very well adapted to the blackening of grey 
or defective eyebrows; a thing which to this day is much used in the 
East, also by men as it is considered a remedy to prevent eye diseases. 
The physicians often used the spatula sound as a pharmaceutical instrument 
at the preparation of innumerable mixtures of remedies among which 
»collyria« for treating eye diseases played a great part. Many of these 
collyria contained copper compounds and were certainly fit for the 
treatment of /rachoma the »Egyptian eye disease« which then as now 
made severe ravages also in Syria and Palestine. The end of the sound 
was used then as now (see Pl. III, 15 and 22) to put ointments into the 
palpebral fissure and the Syrian surgeons have certainly often used the 
sound Pl. I, 25, 26, Pl. II, 1, 2, 3 and most of the sounds in PI. III in 
this way. 
Looking at the sounds with a conic point (Pl. I, 29, II, 5 and Pl. III, 19 
— 20) a surgeon of the present day must think of the possibility that they 
have been used in the treatment of gonorrhoic strictures of the urethra. 
