Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times - Couverture souple

Milne, J. S.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0890051771 ISBN 13 : 9780890051771

Editeur : Ares Publishers Inc.,U.S., 1907

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The earliest classical writer on medical subjects is Hippocrates, who was born in 460 B. C. and who practised in Athens and other parts of Greece. The ‘Hippocratic Collection’ is well known to consist of works which are not all by Hippocrates himself; but as the pseudo-Hippocratic works all belong to the classical period they are all admissible as evidence for our purpose, and for the sake of brevity I shall throughout refer to them as if all were by Hippocrates. Many interesting instruments are named in the comparatively small collection of treatises which make up the admittedly genuine list of Hippocratic works, but, taking these along with the pseudo-Hippocratic works, the number of instruments named in the whole collection is surprisingly large, comprising as it does trephines, bone drills, probes, needles, tooth forceps, uvula forceps, bone elevators, uterine sounds, graduated dilators, cranioclasts, and others. After Hippocrates there is a break in the continuity of the literature, and for some hundreds of years Greek medicine is represented almost entirely by the Alexandrian Schools. The first printed edition of the Hippocratic works was a Latin translation printed at Rome in 1525, followed by the Aldine edition of the Greek text printed at Venice in the following year. Other editions are the edition of Föes (1595), Van der Linden (1665), Kühn (Leipzig, 1821). Later editions are the text with a French translation by Littré (10 vols., 1849-61), a scholarly edition by Ermerins with a Latin rendering (1859-64), and an excellent translation of the genuine works of Hippocrates by the world-famous Dr. Adams of Banchory (Sydenham Soc. Trans., 1849). The best edition, however, is the edition of Kuehlewein, begun in 1894 and at present in course of publication by Teubner, Leipzig. The later volumes have not yet appeared. For the portion of the text which is not contained in the first two volumes of Kuehlewein I have relied on the edition of Kühn for most of the readings, although occasionally those of Van der Linden or Föes are to be preferred. The references given are to the volumes and pages of Kühn’s edition, but in this edition indications are given of the corresponding localities in the other editions so that cross-references to these can easily be made. There seems to be a different arrangement in different editions of Föes, for Liddell and Scott say the references in their Lexicon are to the pages in Föes but they do not correspond in any way to the pagination of the edition before me (Frankfort, 1595).

Présentation de l'éditeur

I ndeed, comparatively little attention has been given to tbis department of archaeology. Literature bearing on it is comparatively scarce. What we have is entirely continental, and consists of a series of reports of different finds with attempts to indicate the uses of the instruments described. In addition to these reports and the actual instruments scattered over various museums, we have at our disposal the writings of the ancient authors themselves. In these a fair number of instruments are minutely described, while many others are named, and here and there points about their shape are mentioned in different places; and by piecing these particulars together and deducing other facts from the nature of the manipulations the instruments are employed in, we can describe in detail, with a tolerable amount of certainty, a surprisingly large number of instruments. It must be confessed that these ancient classics are rather difficult of access, surprisingly so considering that until a few decades ago they were reverenced as works of authority for medical practice; but the fact seems to be that our predecessors were largely content to draw their knowledge of these authors from mediaeval Latin translations. Part of one of the most interesting authors has never been published in the original Greek, and for our knowledge of it we are dependent on a sixteenth-century Latin translation, supplemented, it may be, by fugitive consultations of codices in libraries and museums. Others of the Greek texts have not been reprinted since the sixteenth century, and bristle with the ingenious but at first perplexing shorthand contractions with which the Renaissance tjrpographer imitated the Compendia of the manuscripts. These difficulties can be got over with patience, however, and the waste of gray matter necessary as a preliminary is not out of proportion to the results to be o
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Ares Publishers Inc.,U.S.
• Date d'édition: 1907
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0890051771
• ISBN 13: 9780890051771
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible