In keeping with all this is most of the surgical work of the collection. We are almost startled by the modern sound of the whole procedure as we run through the rough notebook κατ’ ἰητρεῖον, _Concerning the Surgery_, or the more elaborate treatise περὶ ἰητροῦ, _On the Physician_, where we may read minute directions for the preparation of the operating-room, and on such points as the management of light both artificial and natural, scrupulous cleanliness of the hands, the care and use of the instruments, with the special precautions needed when they are of iron, the decencies to be observed during the operation, the general method of bandaging, the placing of the patient, the use and abuse of splints, and the need for tidiness, order, and cleanliness. Many of these directions are enlarged upon in other surgical works of the collection, among which we find especially full instructions for bandaging and for the diagnosis and treatment of fractures and dislocations. A very fair representation of such a surgery as these works describe is to be found on a vase-painting of Ionic origin which is of the fifth century and therefore about contemporary with Hippocrates himself (see fig. 5). There are also several beautiful representations on vases of the actual processes of bandaging (fig. 6). [Illustration: From MS. of APOLLONIUS OF KITIUM, of Ninth Century Copied from a pre-Christian original Fig. 3. REDUCING DISLOCATED SHOULDER] [Illustration: Fig. 4. REDUCING DISLOCATED JAW] Among the surgical procedures of which descriptions are to be found in the Hippocratic writings are the opening of the chest for the condition known as _empyema_ (accumulation of pus within the pleura frequently following pneumonia), and trephining the skull in cases of fracture of that part—two fundamental operations of modern surgery. Surgical art has advanced enormously in our own times, yet a text-book containing much that is useful to this day might be prepared from these surgical contents of the collection alone.