Antique medicine


Hook and drill

Bronze, about 300 BC.

 

 

Many artefacts from Roman times are difficult to classify, as well as the two devices presented here:

- a kind of hook (lat. hamulus) (length 113 mm, width of the eyelet 9 mm), which could have all imaginable functions (why not stop also smaller wounds, so that the surgeon could clean it),



- A small handy device with a kronförmigem end that may have served as a drill. From the Roman Empire it is known that the Greek physician Archigenes bored painful teeth around 100 AD with a fine drill. Galen has told us how to treat toothache in his time: "If it does not give way to any of the remedies mentioned above, but the pain is violent, then I will use the medicines mentioned after drilling the tooth with a delicate drill". This did not mean that with the help of the drill, the carious spots were removed and a filling was applied, no, the drill was only used to eliminate the pain, similarly Avicenna recommended using a thin drill bit later on in toothache to remove the damaged matter and The cure was able to get to the bottom of the pain, and the same was recommended by the physician Giovanni d'Arcoli from Verona around 1450.



Transport containers for bandages called the Romans "capsae". In a "capsa" was transported bandages, but also hemostatic drugs. Originally they were intended for the transport of scrolls and correspondingly large. The carrier of such containers was called "Capsarius".