Stylus (one of an eleven-piece set of medical instruments)

Surgery was a central component of ancient Greek and Roman medicine. The Roman author Celsus, who wrote a major medical treatise in the first century A.D., tells how ancient physicians used surgical in-struments. In many cases, the functions and designs of these tools remained virtually unchanged into mo-dern times. Surgical implements, generally made of bronze or other copper alloys, have been found mainly in tombs and in a few fortuitously preserved doctors' houses. Since the manufacture and decoration of medical tools were highly conservative, it is often difficult to date them precisely. The most skilled surgeons probably owned the largest and most diverse collections of instruments. This group of medical apparatus is relatively small and probably incomplete-crucially, a scalpel is missing. It is, however, an unusually fine and intricate set, with inlaid details in silver and copper. The two tubular cases were used to carry the tools, which include a whetstone for sharpening, two hooks, two forceps, and a long, thin urological probe. The two smaller cylindrical boxes held medicinal powders, possibly in the form of pellets. A writing instrument, or stylus, is a reminder that even Roman doctors had to write medical instructions, not to mention bills.  The most elaborately wrought tool in the set is a hook with a handle whose form imitates the knotted club of Hercules. While the additional texture may have made the handle easier for the surgeon to grasp, a Herculean reference may also have had meaningful connotations for the doctor and his patients-symbolizing hard work and high achievement and invoking the hero, an averter of evil. The Roman author Pliny the Elder even advised that wounds would heal faster if bound with the difficult Hercules knot.