The surgical instruments of the Bible are the sharp stone or flint knives with which circumcision was performed, and the awl with which a servant’s ear was bored by his master (Exod. iv. 25; Josh. v. 2; Exod. xxi. 6). Roller bandages are referred to for fractures (Ezek. xxx. 21). Job used a scraper when he was smitten with boils (Job ii. 8). The materia medica of the Bible is meagre. A poultice of figs—a favourite remedy in ancient times—is ordered in 2 Kings xx. 7. Fish galls (Tobit xi. 4-13) and fasting saliva are used (Mark viii. 23). The only regular prescription mentioned is that in Exodus xxx. 23-25. Midwives were regularly employed to assist Hebrew mothers. The “bearing stool” was employed. There is a very beautiful figurative description of the disease of old age or senile decay given by Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes:— “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; also _when_ they shall be afraid of _that which is_ high, and fears _shall be_ in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”