Pure copper was occasionally used for instruments, and of these we have a few remaining, and vessels and instruments of it are frequently mentioned: 'Oportet autem moveri aquam ipsam rudicula vel spathomela aeris rubri' (Marcellus, _De Medicamentis_, xiv. 44). Coins were frequently made of brass (ὀρείχαλκος, _orichalcum_, _aurichalcum_), a mixture of copper, tin, and zinc, and in Pompeii there have been found two scalpel handles of brass composed of 25 per cent. of zinc and 75 per cent. of copper. The copper was got mainly from Cyprus and Spain. A small amount, however, came from Africa and Asia. _Tin._ Tin came mainly from Britain. We have no instruments of tin preserved to us, but they are frequently referred to. Hippocrates mentions, over and over again, uterine sounds of tin, and he also speaks of sounds and eyed probes for rectal work, which were made of tin so that they might be flexible. Vessels of tin for storing medicaments in are spoken of by Largus: 'Reponitur medicamentum fictili vel stagneo vase' (cclxviii). In the Museum at Chesters (Chollerford) there is a tin weight for medicines. _Lead._ Leaden sounds and tubes for intra-uterine medication are frequently mentioned in the Hippocratic writings, and Celsus and Paul refer to leaden tubes for insertion in the rectum and vagina to prevent cicatricial contractions and adhesions after operations on these parts. The therapists also mention medicament jars of lead. There is one in the Capitoline Museum from the temple of Aesculapius in the forum. _Gold._ There is in the Museum at Stockholm a forceps of gold, but it is more than probable that this is a toilet article. I have a spatula-probe which had been overlaid with gold, and I have met with several others similarly treated. Theodorus Priscianus recommends a cautery of gold for stopping haemorrhage from the throat (_Logicus_, xxii). Avenzoar speaks of a golden probe for applying salve to the eye and for separating adhesion of the eye to the lid. Avicenna lets out the pustules of small-pox with a golden probe. Albucasis recommends burning the roots of hairs in trichiasis with a probe of gold. Mesue recommends a heated scalpel of gold to excise the tonsil. Hippocrates binds the teeth together in fracture of the jaw with a gold wire (iii. 174): cf. Paul, VI. xcii. In one of his dialogues Lucian satirizes a medical man who sought to conceal his ignorance by a display of a fine library, bleeding-cups of silver, and scalpel handles inlaid with gold--the devices of quacks, Lucian says, who did not know how to use the instruments when necessity arose. _Silver._