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Lawrence J. Bliquez. The Tools of Asclepius: Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times. Leiden: Brill, 2015. xxxv + 439 pp. Ill. $194.00 (978-90-04-27907-0).
Students of ancient Greek and Roman medicine have long desired a replacement for J. S. Milne's 1907 Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times. Ernst Künzl's excellent 1983 Medizinische Instrumente aus Sepulkralfunden showed what could be done, although it was restricted to grave finds and did not include other material from general museum collections.1 Since then there have been more finds, better texts, and more sophisticated methodologies, all of which are on display in this learned work, the fruit of forty years of research in collections around the world. It will long be the standard work of reference.
It is what it says: a description and analysis of the instruments used in ancient surgery. After a brief introduction listing authors and sketching an outline of ancient surgical practice, it is divided into...