Adams evidently misunderstood this passage. He translates it 'with the concave part of a scalpel', which is meaningless. This use of the scoop will also explain an otherwise obscure passage in Hippocrates (iii. 678). He says: 'In letting blood avoid pressing hard with the specillum (καὶ ὅταν ἀφαιρῇς τὸ αἷμα τῇ μήλῃ μὴ κάρτα πιέζειν ὡς μὴ φλάσις προσγίνηται) lest injury be caused.' Of the use of the ear scoop as a curette we have several instances. Thus Aetius (II. iii. 81) recommends it for curetting the interior of a chalazion, and again (II. iii. 84), cf. Galen, _Comp. Med._ vii. 2. The scoop was also used for applying medicaments, especially to the eye. Liquid applications were poured from it, semi-solid were applied with the back of it (_averso specillo_). This use of the back of the scoop has often been misunderstood. The natural translation of the phrase _averso specillo_ is 'with the probe turned away', i. e. the back of the probe. Scultetus, however (_Tab._ VIII. vii), considers that it refers to a spatula probe, and says it means the probe turned end for end. Other translators adopt this meaning. Deneffe (_Les Oculistes Gallo Romains_, p. 108), e. g., says: Il faut entendre par _averso specillo_ la partie de la spatule opposée à celle qui sert comme sonde, c'est-à-dire son extrémité large, l'autre bout étant le plus souvent olivaire. Scribonius Largus puts the true meaning of the phrase beyond doubt. He directs us, after the application of caustic to haemorrhoids, to endeavour to get them to fall off by the back of an ear scoop, which part the Greeks called the spoon ('auriscalpio averso quam partem κυαθίσκον Graeci vocant'). Marcellus copies this passage from Scribonius, but alters it. He says: 'de specilli latitudine illinendae sunt' (xxxi. 6, p. 329). I shall now proceed to give a few instances of this use of the back of the scoop in minor surgical manipulations. In ancyloblepharon Celsus says the eyelids are to be separated with the back of the scoop. Igitur aversum specillum inserendum, diducendaeque eo palpebrae sunt (VII. vii. 6). The back of the scoop was used as a retractor for delicate structures. In radical cure of hernia Celsus directs us to keep the bowel from prolapsing by means of it: 'For if the piece be small it is to be pushed back over the groin into the abdomen, either with the finger or the back of the specillum.' Nam quod parvulum est super inguen in uterum vel digito vel averso specillo repellendum est (VII. xxi). In the cure of varicocele it is used to replace the veins in position: Tum venae, quaecunque protractae sunt, in ipsum inguen averso specillo compelli debent (VII. xxii). 'Then the veins which have been drawn upon ought to be replaced with the back of a specillum.' In sloughing ulcer of the bladder it is used to separate the lips of the perineal wound: