An instrument called beluleum
was invented during the long Peloponnesian War, over four hundred
years before the Christian era. It was a rude extracting-forceps,
and was used by Hippocrates in the many campaigns in which he
served. His immediate successor, Diocles, invented a complicated
instrument for extracting foreign bodies, called graphiscos,
which consisted of a canula with hooks. Otis states that it was
not until the wars of Augustus that Heras of Cappadocia designed
the famous duck-bill forceps which, with every conceivable
modification, has continued in use until our time. Celsus
instructs that in extracting arrow-heads the entrance-wound
should be dilated, the barb of the arrow-head crushed by strong
pliers, or protected between the edges of a split reed, and thus
withdrawn without laceration of the soft parts. According to the
same authority, Paulus Aegineta also treated fully of wounds by
arrow-heads, and described a method used in his time to remove
firmly-impacted arrows. Albucasius and others of the Arabian
school did little or nothing toward aiding our knowledge of the
means of extracting foreign bodies. After the fourteenth century
the attention of surgeons was directed to wounds from projectiles
impelled by gunpowder.
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