EMPLOYMENT OF SEWING -NEEDLES. 127 



XL 



ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF SEWING-NEEDLES IN ANCIENT TIMES. 

 BY M. E. LABTET, Professor of Palooontologj-, Museum of Natural History, Jardin dcs Plantes, Paris. 



" No collection of antiquities," says the learned Mongez (Article " AIGUILLE a 

 coudre," in the Dictionary of Antiquities, ' Encyclopedic Mdthodique,' 1786), 

 " presents any ancient needles, although Greek and Roman authors frequently 

 mention needle-work and embroidery. If needles," he adds, " were at that time 

 made of steel, like ours, rust has destroyed them all." 



The art of working iron has been known, as we are well aware, from time 

 immemorial. In the Fourth Chapter of the Book of Genesis it is said that men 

 had learned from Tubal-cain the art of forging iron and brass (bronze). Homer 

 often mentions iron ; and in the ' Odyssey,' Book ix. line 391, we find a com- 

 parison of the noise made, by the burning stake plunged by Ulysses into the eye 

 of Polyphemus to that of the red-hot hatchet or axe-head hissing in the cold 

 water into which it has been plunged by the smith to give it hardness, an 

 operation, adds the poet, by which iron gets its strength : hence we may conclude 

 that even the art of tempering was known*. 



Nevertheless for those distant times of high antiquity, and even down to the 

 end of the Middle Ages, we know only of needles of bone and of other metal than 

 iron, namely bronze. It seems indeed that the ancients gave the preference to 

 bronze in the manufacture of their most delicate surgical implements. 



The oldest mention of bronze needles occurs in the " Batrachomyomachia," 

 if this burlesque poem can indeed be attributed to Homer. It is there said, 

 verses 129 and 130, that the combatants (the Mice) are armed with a long 

 bronze needle in place of a lancet. I have to thank M. Merime'e in the 



*ii 2' or" afi/p %<i\i;evs ire\Kvr jueyor i/e ftirafvbv 



t\v vSiiTi \j/vxp<j> ftavrei /.teydXa laypVTa, 



<bapfinaaii>v' rii yup aurc atSi'ipov ye Kpuros earii'. Od. ix. 39193. 



t Batrachom., lin. 129 & 130, ed. F. Frankc, Londini, 1828. 



Apqot* 



........ and their lance (is) 



a long needle, the solid bronze work of Ares. 



T2 



