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Ira M. Rutkow, MD, MPH, DrPH

Arch Surg. 2000;135:360.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

SCALPEL, AS DEFINED IN Stedman's Medical Dictionary is: "A pointed knife with convex edge." Amongst the oldest known instruments in a surgeon's armamentarium, early representations of scalpels are found on a sculptured ex-voto stone tablet located on the site of the temple of Aesculapius at Athens' Acropolis, dating from about 300 BC. Since Greece had passed into the Iron Age, it is probable that their cutting instruments were made of steel and often double ended, containing a blade and spatula. Moving ahead several centuries, Roman scalpels were mostly bronze and, although the actual blade sometimes had double cutting edges, whenever possible, the combination of 2 instruments in 1 was also used. Thus, knives frequently had a spoon or even a raspatory at its opposite end. Known to Romans as "scalpellus," in more technologically advanced forms the metal of the blade could be found . . . [Full Text of this Article]