Ancient Greek Bronze Medical Lancet
license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
source: Wikimedia Commons
author: Wellcome Images
source: Wikimedia Commons
author: Wellcome Images
Description
A photograph shows a bronze medical lancet used in ancient Greece. The lancet has a slightly curved body with a sharp, flattened tip for incisions.
Date
Artifact: unknown
Photo: 2014
Information
This ancient bronze lancet would have been used for bloodletting in ancient Greece. If a physician determined that a patient would benefit from a treatment of bloodletting, they would use a lancet such as this one to make a small incision from which to drain the blood. This was a very common treatment, considered to bring into balance the four humors of the body in some cases.
Related Articles
Bloodletting | Ancient Greek Medicine
Bibliography
Brain, P. (2009). Galen on bloodletting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.