A more bellied form is seen in Pl. V, fig. 5, which is from the Naples Museum, and is all of bronze, handle and blade. At the Scientific Congress held at Naples in 1845 Vulpes showed this specimen, and described it as the lithotomy knife invented by Meges and mentioned by Celsus (VII. xxvi). Later I shall discuss in detail the instrument of Meges, but I believe the instrument shown by Vulpes is only an ordinary scalpel with a somewhat bellied shape. Hippocrates refers to a bellied scalpel in a well-known passage on empyema (ii. 258): Ὅκως σοι ἡ ἔξοδος τοῦ πύους εὐρὺς ᾖ τάμνειν δεῖ μεταξὺ τῶν πλευρῶν στηθοειδεῖ μαχαιρίδι τὸ πρῶτον δέρμα. 'Incise the outer integument between the ribs with a bellied scalpel.' Στηθοειδής means rounded like the breast of a woman. Galen translates it in his lexicon τῷ σμιλίῳ ἰατρικῷ γαστρωδεῖ, 'the bellied surgical knife.' It is quite a serviceable instrument for several kinds of work, and it seems to have been a common form. Three out of the six scalpels depicted in the votive tablet from the Acropolis are of this form, and there are now in the Naples Museum four others of the same shape as the one described by Vulpes. These have blades of steel and handles of bronze. The figures of three of these (Pl. V, figs. 3-6), show the gradual evolution from a common scalpel into the bellied form. I have seen a scalpel with a blade similar to Pl. V, fig. 3 in use in Scotland for castrating piglings and calves. _Scarificator for wet cupping._ Paul (VI. xli) says that some have conceived for the purpose of scarifying before wet cupping an instrument compounded of three blades joined together in such a way that at one stroke three scarifications are made: Τινὲς οὖν ἐπενόησαν ὄργανον πρὸς τοῦτο, τρία σμιλία ἴσα ζεύξαντες ὁμοῦ, ὅπως τῇ μιᾷ ἐπιβολῇ τρεῖς γίνοιντο διαιρέσεις. Paul says he prefers a single scalpel. What the precise shape of scalpel used was we cannot say, but it would most likely be one of the bellied forms. Hippocrates, in his treatise _De Medico_, says that the lancets used in wet cupping should be rounded and not too narrow at the tip (καμπύλοις ἐξ ἄκρου μὴ λίην στενοῖς). Even if καμπύλος meant curved and not bellied it would not be certain that it was meant to cut on the convex side of the blade. The words of Hippocrates imply at any rate a blade with a rounded, not sharp point (i. 62). _Straight sharp-pointed bistoury._ Greek, σκολοπομαχαίριον, σκολόπιον; Latin, _scalpellus_. The etymology of the term σκολοπομαχαίριον as applied to a cutting instrument sufficiently indicates its shape. It takes its name from its similarity to the beak of a snipe, which is long and slender[1]. We find it used by Galen (xi. 1011) for dissecting out warts, excising caruncles from the inner canthus, puncturing the foetal cranium in obstructed labour, &c. [1] So says Briau (_Paul D'Egine_, p. 97), but it seems more likely to be derived from σκόλοψ 'a spike'.