The identity in shape of the abscess knife and the phlebotome holds good to-day. The best example of the phlebotome is in the Cologne Museum. It was found in the Luxemburgerstrasse along with the other contents of a surgeon's case. It is all of steel, with a square handle and blade of myrtle leaf shape (Pl. VII, fig. 2). There is in the Naples Museum an instrument which is of this shape, and Vulpes (Tav. VI, fig. 1) has described it as a lancet for bleeding. The instrument, however, is formed of a blade of silver set in a handle of bronze, so that it can scarcely be regarded as a cutting instrument (see Pl. XIX, fig. 2). I look upon it as an unguent spatula. There is, however, an instrument of bronze of phlebotome shape in the Naples Museum. It was found in the house of the physician in the Strada del Consulare of Pompeii, and it was described by Vulpes as an instrument for removing the eschar formed by a cautery, as it was found lying alongside a small trident-shaped cautery. It is doubtful whether the eschar formed by a cautery was removed at all, and it is still more doubtful whether Vulpes is justified in postulating a special instrument for doing so, and as this instrument is of phlebotome shape it is more likely to have been a phlebotome than anything else. It is of bronze, 8 cm. long and 9 mm. in the broadest part of the blade. The handle is neatly decorated with raised ring ornamentation. The following account of the discovery of a phlebotome in excavating some graves along the line of the old Watling Street Road, in the neighbourhood of Wroxeter, is given by C. Roach Smith in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (1862, pt. ii. p. 677): 'Several sepulchral interments have been met with of a character similar to those usually found in Roman cemeteries. In some of them objects of particular interest were found, with urns and other earthen vessels; as, for instance, the fragments of a circular mirror in the bright, shining, mixed metal commonly known as 'speculum' metal; and what appears to be a surgeon's lancet, contrived in a very ingenious manner. The point for penetrating the flesh is of steel, not unlike that in use at the present day. It is surmounted by a guard to hinder it from cutting too deeply, and above this is a handle, which is bow-shaped, and of bronze.'