A word must be said of the later writers such as Paré (1509-90), Scultetus (1650), and Heister (1739). The works of these are profusely illustrated with instruments, some of which can plainly be seen to tally exactly with the descriptions of the classical authors. In other cases, although the names given to the instruments are those of classical times, it is, to say the least, doubtful whether they are of the same form as the ancient instruments whose names they bear. That was an age of great activity in the manufacture of new forms of surgical instruments, and we must accept with caution illustrations professing to indicate ancient forms of instruments. At the same time it is very interesting to note the large number of primitive arrangements which remained in use till nearly 1800. The enema syringe figured by Heister is exactly the same as we find described in the Hippocratic works--the bladder of an animal affixed to a tube--and many practitioners alive at the present day have seen the same simple arrangement in actual use. CHAPTER II MATERIAL, EXECUTION, AND ORNAMENTATION _Steel and Iron._ The surgical instruments we meet with are, as a rule, of bronze. Not that the Greeks and Romans did not make many of their instruments of iron and steel, but the iron has mainly perished while more of the bronze has persisted. Long before the date of the earliest medical writings, Greece had passed into the iron age. The Homeric poems picture a civilization in the state of transition from a bronze to an iron period, and weapons such as sword, axe, and spear, are frequently described as made of iron. In the _Iliad_ we even read of implements of agriculture made of iron, but it is 'hard to work' (πολύκμητος, _Iliad_ vi. 48, _Od._ xxi. 10). However, by the time that Hippocrates wrote, it was in common use, and, if we had only the evidence of the Hippocratic writings to go by, we could see that it was in common use in the time of Hippocrates. Certain instruments, such as the cautery, are always spoken of as made of iron, in fact, the term for cautery is, as a rule, 'the iron,' and σίδηρος ὁ ὀξύς is a general term for 'the knife'. The smelting of iron is even used as a simile by Hippocrates: 'In the same way iron comes from stones and earth burnt together. In the first exposure to the fire stones and earth mix together with scoria, but at the second and third burning the scoria separate themselves from the iron, and this phenomenon meets the eye, that the iron remains in the fire fallen apart from the scoria, and becomes solid and compact' (ii. 371). Again, he uses as a simile a speculative theory as to the way in which heating iron softens it and dipping it in water hardens it. He believes that this comes about by the fire depriving the iron of its nourishing substance, while the addition of water restores it.