'The knife, made by an African bush blacksmith, he uses for shaving. He employs no soap to soften the skin or roughen the hair, only a little water. He sharpens his razor on a black leather strap, turning the knife on the back so deftly that the eye cannot follow the movement; the few last touches he gives to it by turning it with splendid dexterity on the front of the left arm, where the skin is worn and bare by this manipulation. He shaves the whole face, except the nose. He leaves a fine line of eyebrow. The hair is cut short. The outline of the hairy part of the scalp in front is very clearly demarcated by shaving back about a half to an inch and a half. Then he turns the front edge by a marvellous stroke. He holds the knife horizontally, and, with a downward stroke cuts off all the projecting ends of the hair round the forehead. No European barber could do it without burying his razor in the skin. He never draws blood' (_Proc. Anat. and Anthrop. Soc. Univ. Abdn._, 1900-2). _Bronze._ Although, as I have shown, iron and steel were largely used in the manufacture of instruments, fortunately for us bronze was the metal usually selected, for thus many instruments have withstood the lapse of time which would otherwise have been oxidized out of existence. Copper is much more easily got from ore than iron, and consequently it was the first to be used by man, and very early the advantage of combining it with tin to form bronze was found out. Bronze was used by the Egyptians 6,000 years ago, and the Phoenicians, who got it from them, passed it on to the whole of Europe. The quantity of tin in the bronze is very constantly about 7-1/2 per cent. The majority of the instruments which have been preserved to us are of bronze. Hippocrates (i. 58) says: Χαλκώματι δὲ πλὴν τῶν ὀργάνων, μηδενὶ χρήσθω. καλλωπισμὸς γάρ τις εἶναί μοι δοκεῖ φορτικὸς σκεύεσι τοιουτέοισι χρῆσθαι. 'Use bronze only for instruments, for it seems laboured ornamentation to use vessels of it.' We have, however, a good many specimens of vessels which prove that physicians did not adhere to this advice. We know too that certain medicaments were intentionally stored in copper vessels. Scribonius says: Deinde in patella aeris Cyprii super carbones posita infervescit, donec mellis habeat non nimium liquidi spissitudinem atque ita reponitur puxide aeris Cyprii (_Compositiones_, xxxvii).