The strigil varied much in size and shape. A common form was a sickle-shaped instrument, the circular part being hollow and semicircular on section, and admirably adapted for warming and pouring oil and other medicaments into the ear as above described. Pl. XXV, fig. 1 shows a small strigil from my collection. _Spoon for applying astringent liquids to the uvula._ Greek, σταφυλεπάρτης. In his description of the medical treatment of diseases of the mouth Paul (III. xxvi) says: 'When the uvula is inflamed we must use the gargles recommended for inflammation of the tonsils, and those of a moderately astringent nature, such as the juice of pomegranate, applied by means of a spoon or the instrument called the "uvula medicator"' (σταφυλεπάρτου). It is evident that it is quite a different instrument from the staphylocaustus (_q. v._), which we are specially told had more than one hollow and was a grasping instrument like a forceps. The present instrument is for applying liquids, and was apparently of the form of a spoon. Fabricius describes and figures such an instrument. It is a small round spoon with a long handle. CHAPTER V FORCEPS _Epilation Forceps._ Greek, τριχολαβίς, τριχολάβιον (== τριχολαβίδιον); Latin, _vulsella_. The removal of the hair from the face for cosmetic purposes is a custom which has come down to us from prehistoric times, and seems to have been very prevalent among all primitive races. In the bronze age the method by which this was accomplished seems to have been to fix the hairs with a broad jawed forceps and cut them off close to the skin by means of a knife or 'razor'. Thus did primitive men 'shave', and very often in early bronze age graves in Scandinavia and in the Swiss lake-dwelling excavations these forceps and razors are found together. No doubt also epilation proper was practised occasionally, but the majority of the prehistoric forceps are not for epilation but for fixing the hairs to allow the knife to divide them close to the skin. At a later time, with the more common use of steel, the Greeks and Romans shaved as we do, and epilation proper was practised for removing superfluous hairs from the face and also to remove trichiasis. Aristophanes, a contemporary of Hippocrates (Ran. 516, Lys. 89, 151), Persius (iv. 37) and Juvenal (vii. 114) refer to the depilation of the pubes as being common among certain classes, and the early Christian Fathers deplore the practice. See also the remarks of Suetonius on the conduct of Domitian (xxii). Prosper Alpinus, who visited Egypt in the sixteenth century and wrote an interesting book on the state of medicine in that country, found the custom still prevalent among the Egyptian women, and thus explains the object with which it was practised (_Medicina Aegyptiorum_, cap. III. xv):