'Then if the head presents there ought to be inserted a hook, smooth all round, with a short point which is properly fixed in the eye or the ear or the mouth, sometimes even in the forehead, which being drawn on extracts the child. Nor is it to be drawn on without regard to circumstance. For if the attempt is made with an undilated cervix, not getting exit the foetus is broken up, and the point of the hook catches on the cervix and inflammation follows and much danger of death. Therefore, it is necessary with a contracted cervix to wait quietly, with a dilated one to make gentle traction, and during these times to extract it gradually. The right hand ought to make the traction on the hook, the left place inside to draw the child and at the same time to direct it.' The following passage in Soranus shows that it was customary also to insert a second hook opposite the first and to make traction on both at the same time: 'The best places for the insertion of the hooks are in head presentations, the eyes, the occiput, and the mouth, the clavicles, and the parts about the ribs. In footling cases the pubes, ribs, and clavicles, are the best. Warm oil having been applied as a lubricant the hook is to be held in the right hand; the curvature concealed in the left hand is to be carefully introduced into the uterus, and plunged into some of the places mentioned till it pierce right through to the hollow part beneath. Then a second one is to be put in opposite to it (καταπείρειν δὲ καὶ ἀντίθετον τούτῳ δεύτερον), in order that the pulling may be straight and not one-sided' (II. xix). Aetius (IV. iv. 23) and Paul (VI. lxxiv) copy this. Hippocrates (ii. 701) bids us break up the head with a cephalotribe in such a way as not to splinter the bones, and remove the bones with bone forceps; or, a traction hook (τῷ ἑλκυστῆρι) being inserted near the clavicle so as to hold, make traction but not much at once, but little by little, withdrawing and again inserting it. There are three traction hooks from Pompeii in the Naples Museum. One of these is given in Pl. L, fig. 1. They are of steel, with handles of bronze. Hooks on the same principle, and differing in appearance very little from the Pompeian hooks, are still used by veterinary surgeons. _Decapitator._ Of transverse presentations, Celsus says: Remedio est cervix praecisa; ut separatim utraque pars auferatur. Id unco fit, qui, priori similis, in interiore tantum parte per totam aciem exacuitur. Tum id agendum est ut ante caput deinde reliqua pars auferatur. 'The treatment is to divide the neck so that each part may be extracted separately. This is done with a hook which, though similar to the last, is sharpened on its inside only, along its whole border. Then we must endeavour to bring away the head first, and then the rest of the body.'