POMPEIAN SURGERY AND SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS.

BY

N. SENN, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D.,OF CHICAGO, ILL, ;

PROFESSOR OF PRACTICAL SURGERY AND CLINICAL SURGERY IN RUSH MEDICAL COLLEGE; PROFESSOROF SURGERY, CHICAGO POLYCLINIC; ATTENDING SURGEON PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL;

SURGEON-IN-CHIEF ST. JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL.

FROM

THE MEDICAL NEWS,

December 28, 1895.

POMPEIAN SURGERY AND SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS}

N. SENN, M.D, Ph.D, LL.D.,OF CHICAGO, ILL ;

PROFESSOR OF PRACTICAL SURGERY AND CLINICAL SURGERY IN RUSH MEDICAL COLLEGE; PROFESSOROF SURGERY, CHICAGO POLYCLINIC; ATTENDING SURGEON PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL;

SURGEON IN CHIEF ST. JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL.

A recent visit to the ruins of Pompeii and theNaples Museum has enabled me to make a carefulexamination of the ruined homes and corrodedimplements of the Pompeian surgeons. A visit ofthis kind, with its wonderful revelations at everystep, is a memorable event in the life of every stu-dent of ancient surgery who has enjoyed such anopportunity. Nearly two-thousand years haveelapsed since the last surgeons of that ill-fated citypractised their art. They perished or fled duringthat fearful eruption of Vesuvius that wiped outof existence so suddenly the two neighboring cities,Pompeii and Herculaneum, burying the formerunder a bed of burning ashes and incorporating thelatter in a mass of lava. It is interesting to pos-terity that the city of Pompeii, with all its antiquetreasures, has been preserved for centuries underthis removable mantle of the product of volcanicaction, which has made it possible for the inter-ested archeologists of the present century to unveilto us the works of art and science of two-thousandyears ago. A walk through the streets of the re-cently uncovered city of Pompeii brings vividlyto the mind of the visitor the life, works, virtues,and vices of its former inhabitants. The old aque-duct that supplied the city with pure water fromthe mountains is well preserved and remains as oneof the marvels of engineering of that time. Thepavements of the streets can compare favorablywith those of our day. The bare walls of publicand private buildings testify to the unrivalled per-fection masonry had attained at that day. Thecrude stone mills operated by human power fur-nished the city with flour, which in the adjacentbakery was converted into bread.

The enormous wine-jugs, so numerous in placeswhere wine was sold and drunk, remain as lastingmementoes that the Pompeians were by no means

prohibitionists. The numerous houses of prostitu-tion, both public and private, remain as silent wit-nesses of a vice which appeared to have beenunusually prevalent at that time. The capaciousforum, amphitheater, comic and tragic theaters

1 Read before the Alumni Association of Cook County Hos-pital, November xB, 1895.

that remain in a wonderful state of preservation,show that the people of that day—male and female,old and young—enjoyed the glittering stage andthe bloody contests of the gladiators. The publicbath-house is a marvel of its kind, and it is doubt-ful if in its artistic design and luxury it could beduplicated to-day. The private dwellings are allconstructed on the same plan masterpieces ofcomfort and sanitary construction. The numerousfountains furnished pure water for beast and man.The temple of Esculapius is one of the prominentlandmarks of the former city, and fortunately timeand the elements have dealt gently with its preciouscontents. In the center of the capacious anteroomstands the altar of pure marble, beautifully carved,at which the priests of old worshipped in the inter-ests of suffering humanity. It is here where thesick, the maimed, and the injured sought relief.As I stood behind the altar where so many of thedisciples of Esculapius had stood and performedtheir sacred functions, it seemed to me that I couldhear the pitiable appeals of the suffering Pompeiansand the sound advice and sweet words of consola-tion of the ministering priest. With the temple ofEsculapius will always be associated the early his-tory of medicine and the struggle between diseaseand its successful treatment.

A walk through the narrow, stone-paved streets ofthe uncovered part of the ruins of Pompeii is nec-essarily attended with serious thoughts of the pastand present. The wider streets show deep groovesmade by the chariot-wheels, while the narrowerstreets were reserved for pedestrians. The one-storybuildings, both public and private, show a singularuniformity in their construction—evidence that thePompeian architects and builders had in view morethe comfort and health of their occupants than adesire to exhibit their talent. The many shops inthe principal street were the homes and business-places of merchants who supplied the citizens withthe luxuries and necessities of life. A large buildingon the corner of two streets served as a drug-store,where crude drugs were dealt out to those in needof remedial agents. The proprietor of this primi-tive pharmacy—living, as he did, next door to a

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public house of prostitution—in order to protecthimself and family against intrusion of an unde-sirable nature, found it necessary to place abovethe entrance a sign to indicate to the prospectivecustomer the legitimate character of his business,and to direct him properly if he was in search ofpleasure.

Before giving a description of the surgical instru-ments exhumed from the ruins of Pompeii, it isnecessary to say something of the city of Pompeiiand its destruction.

The temple in the leper forum at Pompeii, gen-erally called “the temple of Hercules,” is theoldest extant ruin in the city, and it is safe to saythat it is of the same period with the Poestum tem-ples, as it corresponds exactly with them in archi-tecture ; hence we may safely date it at 650 b. c.,and the history of Pompeii is thus narrowed be-tween that date and 79 a. d., when we know fromreliable sources that the final destruction of thecity took place. Our inquiry thus extends over aspace of about seven hundred years. For the firstthree-hundred we are in the regions of conjecture;for the last four hundred we are in therealm ofauthen-ticated history. When the Greek temple was builtat Pompeii the place was in the hands of the Os-cans, a pastoral tribe who came down the plainsin the winter and fed their flocks in the hills in thesummer. The Oscans were driven out of Cam-pania in 420 b. c. by the Samnites, a tribe ofhardy mountaineers who attained the height oftheir power about 350 b. c. and built a great partof Pompeii. The Samnites practically built thecity; and wherever we find houses built of largeblocks of stone, neatly joined together withoutmortar, we may safely predict their Samnite ori-gin. Their work was all in the Doric style, andit was the Romans who covered it with stucco,transformed it into the lonic style, and decoratedit with tracery and paintings. The Romans occu-pied Campania in 88 b. c., and thereafter Pompeiitakes its place in Roman history, and is frequentlymentioned by Seneca, Pliny, and other contempo-rary writers. Toward the close of Nero’s reign—-that is to say, in the year 63 a. d. —the whole re-gion was visited by severe earthquakes, which madesuch havoc that the cities were deserted for severalyears. The rebuilding of Pompeii appears to havebeen begun about 69 a. d., ten years before itsfinal destruction, which took place on the 23d ofNovember, 79 a. d. and appears to have commencedin the afternoon. It is well to observe that althoughHerculaneum and Pompeii were destroyed by thesame eruption, they were destroyed in quite differentways. The former was filled up by a flow of warm,muddy water, which filled it with a soft paste; andsubsequent eruptions have covered it with moltenlava no less than eleven times, rendering excavation

exceedingly difficult and costly. Pompeii, on theother hand, was covered with loose ashes andpumice-stone, which were ejected from the volcanoto a considerable height and blown into the cityby the violent northwesterly gale which Pliny tellsus was raging at that time. In short, Pompeii canbe excavated with a trowel, but it takes a chisel tomake an impression on Herculaneum.

Lord Lytton has given us in his fascinating novel,The Last Days of Pompeii, a graphic and whatmust be considered as a correct description of thedestruction of Pompeii. He connects the beginningof the terrible catastrophe with a public play inwhich Arbaces, the Egyptian, was to be turnedover to the lion by the angry assembled multitude.The helpless Egyptian heard the shouting of thebloodthirsty audience and the roaring of the hun-gry lions, eager for their human prey, when hestretched his hand on high; over his lofty browand royal features there came an expression of un-utterable solemnity and command. “Behold !” heshouted with a voice of thunder, which stilled theroar of the crowd; “behold how the gods protectthe guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcusburst forth against the false witness of my ac-cusers ! ’ ’

The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of theEgyptian and beheld, with ineffable dismay, a vastvapor shooting from the summit of Vesuvius in theform of a gigantic pine-tree; the trunk, blackness ;

the branches, fire ! —a fire that shifted and waveredin its hues with every moment; now fiercely lumin-ous, now of a dull and dying red, that again blazedterrifically forth with intolerable glare.

There was a dead, heart-sunken silence, throughwhich there suddenly broke the roar of the lion,which was echoed back from within the buildingby the sharper and fiercer yells of its fellow-beast.Dread seers were they of the burden of the atmos-phere, and wild prophets of the wrath to come !

Then there arose on high the universal shrieks ofwomen; the men stared at each other, but weredumb. At that moment they felt the earth quakebeneath their feet; the walls of the theater trem-bled ; and, beyond in the distance, they heard thecrash of falling roofs. An instant more and themountain cloud seemed to roll toward them, darkand rapid, like a torrent; at the same time it castforth from its bosom a shower of ashes mixed withvast fragments of burning stone.

Over the crushing vines, over the desolate streets,over the amphitheater itself, far and wide, with manya mighty splash in the agitated sea, fell that awfulshower. No longer thought the crowd of justiceor Arbaces. Safety for themselves was their solethought. Each turned to fly—each dashing, press-ing, crushing against the other. Trampling reck-lessly over the fallen, amidst groans and oaths, and

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prayers, and sudden shrieks, the enormous crowdvomited itself forth through the numerous passages.Whither should they fly? Some, anticipating asecond earthquake, hastened to their homes to loadthemselves with their more costly goods, and escapewhile it was yet time ; others, dreading the showersof ashes that now fell first, torrent upon torrent,over the streets, rushed under the roofs of thenearest houses, or temples, or sheds—shelter of anykind—for protection from the terrors of the openair. But darker, and larger, and mightier spreadthe cloud above them. It was sudden and moreghastly night rushing upon the realm of noon !

Darkness reigned, interrupted only by the occasionalcolumn of fire which escaped from the volcano andthe frequent lightning that encircled and illuminatedmomentarily the mountain, which was the centralpoint of the fearful panorama.

Pompeii had no street-lights. The frightened in-habitants brought their oil-lamps into requisition toexpedite their flight. Frequently, by the momentarylight of these torches, parties of fugitives encoun-tered each other, some hurrying toward the sea,others flying from the sea back to the land ; forthe ocean had retreated rapidly from the shore—anutter darkness lay over it, and, upon its groaningand tossing waves, the storm of cinders and rockfell without the protection which the streetsand roofs afforded to the land. Wild, haggard,ghastly with supernatural fears, these groups en-countered each other, but without the leisure tospeak, to consult, to advise ; for the showers fellnow frequently, though not continuously, extin-guishing the lights, which showed to each other thedeath-like faces of the other, and hurrying all toseek refuge beneath the nearest shelter. The wholeelements of civilization were broken up. Ever andanon, by the flickering lights, one saw the thiethastening by the most solemn authorities of the law,laden with, and fearfully chuckling over, the pro-duce of his sudden gains ! If, in the darkness, wifewas separated from husband or parent from child,vain was the hope of reunion. Each hurriedblindly and confusedly on. Nothing in all thevarious and complicated machinery of social lifewas left save the primal law of self-preservation !

It was under such circumstances that the city ofPompeii, with such of the inhabitants who failed toescape, was buried and preserved for futurity. Thebodies of human beings and animals were charredby the heat, but their forms have been preserved asin a mold by the fiery ashes which fell around andupon them. We thus find in the museums atPompeii and Naples the size and form of the victimsof the eruption preserved to perfection by the sub-stitution of plaster-of-Paris for the original mold.Without such a support the remains on exposurewould crumble into dust. At the time of destruc-

tion, November 23, 79 A. D., Pompeii is said tohave had about 30,000 inhabitants. The numberof those who died and were buried in the ruins willnever be ascertained. Up to 1824, 350 skeletonswere found. Many have been discovered since thattime, and many remain in the unexplored part ofthe city, while the remains of many have been re-moved with the detritus, unrecognized. It is, how-ever, safe to assume that more than one-half of thepopulation escaped the fiery death and soughtshelter in the surrounding country. There is nodoubt that soon after the disaster many of thePompeians rescued a large portion of their valu-ables from their ruined houses, but the site of thecity remained lost for many centuries.

Excavation. The first discovery of the ruins ofPompeii was made in 1595 and the first attemptat excavation was made in 1748. But it was notuntil iB6O that systematic exploration was pursued,and since then it has been scientifically carried onas far as means and opportunity have permitted.It is estimated that the whole of Pompeii will becleared in about fifty years’ time. At the time ofmy visit to the ruins, excavation was in activeprogress. With pick-ax and shovel the ashes andpumice-stone which cover and fill the streets andhouses are loosened, and a small army of boys isemployed to convey the same in baskets to hand-carts, which are propelled by hand-power, over atemporary railway-track. The workmen at thistime were engaged in cleaning a large house, evi-dently an aristocratic residence, with walls andceilings beautifully decorated by paintings, repre-senting female beauty and animal life. The picturesare so well preserved that it seems almost next toimpossible to realize that the artist and formerowner are dead, and that they have been buried inthe ruins for nearly two-thousand years. At thisplace the houses are about ten feet under the surfaceof the soil. The workmen exercise great care inbringing all objects of interest in as perfect a con-dition as possible to the surface, after which theyare brought to the museum at Naples, where theyare examined, classified, and deposited in their ap-propriate places. The Naples Museum has becomea great treasure house, in which the students ofancient history for ages to come will have an oppor-tunity to study the interesting lesson of the highcivilization of remote ages.

The objects of special interest to the surgeon inthis great collection of ancient art are contained ina glass case, and are properly numbered and de-scribed in the catalog. They are the

Surgical Instruments. These instruments werefound in a house which has since been called the“Surgeon’s House.” They are made of bronze,and some of them show a high degree of artisticworkmanship. Some of them show the destructive

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effect of heat and oxidation, while others are in astate of excellent preservation, as will be seen fromthe illustrations. The illustrations are taken fromspecimens from the Naples Museum by DomenicoMonaco and E. Neville Rolfe, Naples, 1895.

A quadrivalve speculum, which is one of themost interesting and perfect specimens of the col-lection, is, unfortunately, not among the illustra-tions.

a. Actual cautery. Length 10 in. (Off. No.78,034.)

b. Bivalve speculum working on a central pivot.Length 6 in. Width, when open, in. (Off.No. 7831.)

c. Scissors with a spring-like shears. Length 4in. (Off. No. 78,005.)

d. A male catheter which is almost a fac-simileof the one devised by J. L. Petit in the last century.At the closed end is an eye, as in the modern instru-ment, Length io}4 in. (Off. No. 78,026.)

e. Hook. Length 6 in. (Off. No. 78,056.)f. Point of injection-syringe, with eight small per-

forations near the distal end. The other end was,no doubt, filled with a syringe. Length 6 in. (Off.No. 78,235,)

g. Pompeian forceps, formed of two branches,crossing and working on a pivot. Each branch isfitted with an engine-turned handle and a spoon-shaped blade. A powerful forceps, undoubtedlyused for the extraction of foreign bodies. Length8 in. (Off. No. 8 in.)

h. Forceps with serrated bite. Length in.(Off. No. 78,032.)

i. Cupping-glass of bronze. Height 6 in., diame-ter 3 in. (Off. No. 77,991.)

j. Medicine-box with medicines, 5x3 in. (Off.No. 78,199-)

k. Spatula for mixing ointments. Length 7 in,(Off. No. 77,726.)

/. Lancet for bleeding. Length 5 in. (Off. No.78,003.)

m. Fleam for bleeding horses. Length in.(Off. No. 78,007.)

n. Forceps. Length 4 x/2 in. (Off. No. 77,982.)0. Toothed dissecting-forceps with the engraved

name, A. C. A. A:G.L.V. S. F. Length in.(Off. No. 77,985.)

p. Trocar for tapping, with a hole at the end forthe escape of the fluid. Length 5 in. (Off. No.78,008.)

q. Small spoon with bone handle, ending in thehead of a ram. Length in. (Off. No. 78,000.)

r. Female catheter. Length 4 in. (Off. No.78,027.)

s. Bistoury, the blade oxidized and the handlein bronze. Length in. (Off. No. 77,637.)

t. Trivalve speculum, an instrument which, likethe bivalve and the quadrivalve, has been much dis-

cussed by archeologists and physicians. It is com-posed of three valves standing at right angles to therest of the instrument, and jointly dependent onone another in the expansion transmitted only toone of them. By turning the screw one valve isdrawn nearer the operator, and this forces the othertwo to open in a sidelong direction. The instru-ment can be held by the two curved handles withthe left hand, while the right hand turns the screw.Length 8% in.; widest expansion of the valvesin. (Off. No. 78,030.)

u. Spatula. Length 7 in. (Off, No. 78,733)v. A metallic case containing surgical instru-

ments. Length 8x % in. (Off. No. 77,144.)These are some of the most important instruments

found in the ruins of Pompeii, and which wereemployed by our ancestors two-thousand yearsago in the practice of surgery. I searched care-fully, but without avail, for traces of needles orsomething else which would indicate that at thattime wounds were sutured. The collection con-tains no saws, trephines, chisels, or any other in-struments for operations upon bones. All of theinstruments with the exception of the specula andcatheters are diminutive in size as compared withthe same instruments of less remote and moderntimes. The absence of saws and chisels is note-worthy, as among the agricultural instruments thesetools are represented by specimens of a high degreeof perfection.

In the writings of Hippocrates raspatories, mallet,and trephine are mentioned, and consequently musthave been used in operations uponbones other thanthose of the skull. Hippocrates gives very minutedirections as to the use of the trephine in the treatmentof fractures of the skull: “With regard to trepan-ning, when there is a necessity for it, the followingparticulars should be known : If you have had themanagement of the case from the first, you must notat once saw the bone down to the meninx, for it isnot proper that the membrane should be laid bareand exposed to injuries for a length of time, as inthe end it may become fungous. And there isanother danger if you saw the bone down to themeninx and remove it at once, lest in the act ofsawing you should wound the meninx. But in tre-panning, when only a very little of the boneremainsto be sawed through, and the bone can be moved, youmust desist from sawing, and leave the bone to fallout of itself. For to a bone not sawed through, andwhere a portion is left of the sawing, no mischiefcan happen ; for the portion now left is sufficientlythin. In other respects you must conduct the treat-ment as may appear suitable to the wound, and intrepanning you must frequently remove the trepan,on account of the heat in the bone, and plunge itinto cold water. For the trepan, being heated byrunning round, and heating and drying the bone,

5burns it and makes a larger piece of bone aroundthe sawing to drop off than would otherwise do.And if you wish to saw at once down to the mem-brane and then remove the bone, you must also inlike manner frequently take out the trepan and dipit into cold water. But if you have not charge ofthe treatment from the first, but undertake it fromanother after a time, you must saw the bone at oncedown to the meninx with a serrated trepan, and indoing so must frequently take out the trepan andexamine with a sound, and otherwise along thetrack of the instrument. For the bone is muchsooner sawn through, provided there be matter be-low it and in it, and it often happens that the boneis more superficial, especially if the wound is situ-ated in that part of the head where the bone israther thinner than in other places. But you musttake care where you apply the trepan and see thatyou do so only where it appears to be particularlythick, and, having fixed the instrument there, thatyou frequently make examinations and endeavor bymoving the bone to bring it up. Having removedit, you must apply the other suitableremedies to thewound. And if, when you have the management ofthe treatment from the first, you wish to saw throughthe bone at once and remove it from the membrane,you must in like manner examine the track of theinstrument frequently with the sound, and see thatit is fixed on the thickest part of the bone, and en-deavor to remove the bone by moving it about. Butif you use a perforator you must not penetrate tothe membrane, if you operate on a case which youhave had the charge of from the first, but mustleave a thin scale of bone, as described in the pro-cess of sawing.” As Hippocrates at one time livedand practised in Athens during a great epidemic, itappears strange that his teachings in reference to thetreatment of injuries of the skull should not havereached Pompeii, as evidenced by the absence oftrepans and other bone-instruments in the “ Houseof the Surgeon.”

If we judge the worth of the Pompeian surgeonfrom the collection of instruments he left behindhim, it is evident that bloody operations were con-fined to bleeding, cupping, extraction of foreignbodies, and opening of abscesses.' The metallic medi-cine-box, the spatula and spoon indicate that thesurgeonsof that time made free use of medicines andointments in the treatment of injuries and disease.The instruments and implements of wood, splints,etc., were of course destroyed by fire and heat, andtheir absence in the collection leaves undoubtedlya large gap in the surgical resources of the Pompeiansurgeon.

Surgeon's House. The surgeon’s house does notdiffer from the private houses in its vicinity. It isroofless like the rest, all that remains being the barewalls. It is here that most of the surgical instru-

rnents were found. This house was undoubtedlyoccupied by the principal surgeon of Pompeii, whoministered to those in need of surgical aid. It ishere that bleeding and cupping were practised for allkinds of ills, real and imaginary. It is difficult toimagine what transpired from day to day. Thatthe surgeon was a busy man there can be but littledoubt. Competition was then not as active andpressing as it is now, and it is therefore safe toassume that the capacious waiting-room was crowdedday after day by patients anxious to be bled, cupped,or burned. These bare walls, if they could talk,could tell of many sad and exciting scenes. Faint-ing from loss of blood and writhing under the actualcautery, must have been frequent and familiarsights. How often the neighborhood must havebeen disturbed by the cries of the suffering and theshrieks of the tortured ! How often the atmosphereand adjacent streets must have been stifled with thesmell of burned human flesh ! Let us hope that themaster escaped, leaving in his haste his instrumentsof skill and torture as lasting mementoes of his sosuddenly interrupted professional career. The houseis deserted and silent now, a permanent reminderof the great antiquity of the art of surgery. If thelast representative of Pompeian surgery could re-

turn to day and behold the improvements in surgerywhich have been made since his time, he would in-deed be astonished and amazed. What would behis surprise if he could visit one of our modern hos-pitals and inspect an aseptic operating-room. Hewould find his old occupation gone. No need now

for lancet, cupping-glass, and actual cautery. Hewould find the science of surgery developed to awonderful degree of perfection and its practice inconsonance with its principles. He could make useof anesthesia to prevent pain, Esmarch’s bandage toguard against hemorrhage, and operate under asep-tic precautions to protect accidental and intentionalwounds against complications the treatment otwhich made up a large part of the work of theancient surgeon. He would perhaps be astonishedto learn that since Pompeii was buried surgery notonly came to a standstill, but retrograded for cen-turies, and that its present state of perfection isowing largely to the improvements and advance-ments made during the present century. Let usnot forget, however, that our colleagues of the dis-tant past, possessed of a primitive knowledge otanatomy, physiology, and pathology, and armedwith few and imperfect instruments to practise theirart, labored faithfully in the interest of sufferinghumanity, and unquestionably did much towardprolonging the lives and adding to the comfort andhappiness of those who were intrusted to their care.

Pompeian Surgery. There can be but little doubtthat the Pompeian surgeons practised surgery inaccordance with the teachings of Hippocrates.

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Hippocrates, who is justly entitled to be called thefather of medicine, was born on the island of Cos,450 b. c.; hence his lifework was contemporaneouswith the early history of Pompeii. It is not difficult

from its ruins so far seem to indicate that no majoroperations were performed at that time, and thatthe surgeon’s work was limited to cupping, bleeding,the treatment of injuries, and the performance of

to conceive that his teachings penetrated to thiscity, or that some of its surgeons might have beenhis pupils. In all probability, Pompeian surgerywas Hippocratic surgery. As has been remarkedbefore, the instruments which have been recovered

minor operations. The discovery of a number ofvery ingenious specula in the “ House of the Sur-geon” furnishes us with positive evidence that atthat time gynecology was not practised as a spe-cialty, but constituted a legitimate part of the sur-

7geon’s work. Considering the character of themoral atmosphere of Pompeii, it is not astonishingto learn that diseases of the gemto-urinary organstaxed the ingenuity and occupied much of the time

such a conspicuous part of the ruins of Pompeii,stand as lasting monuments of the debauchery andlicentiousness of its former inhabitants, and furnisha satisfactory explanation of the prevalence of

and attention of its surgeons, as shown by the dif-ferent kinds of specula then in use and the wonder-fully perfect construction of the male and femalecatheter. The numerous wine-shops and houses ofprostitution, private and public, that constitute

genitourinary diseases among males and females,and which so often necessitated the services of asurgeon. The fleam for bleeding horses found in theinstrumentarium ot the Pompeian surgeon goes toshow that he extended his sphere of usefulness to

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the domestic animals, which furnished him with anadditional field for observation and undoubtedlyadded materially to his income. That the surgeonof Pompeii was a man of means and good socialposition is amply testified to by the size and loca-tion of his house. This house is capacious, and islocated in the aristocratic part of the city. A liberalincome undoubtedly rewarded his labors and placedhim in a position to enjoy the luxuries of life, which

seems to have been the main object in life of themass of the people at that time. The existence ofa separate house occupied as a pharmacy shows thatthe people then, as now, had great faith in thehealing powers of herbs and drugs, and the medi-cine-box found in the “Surgeon’s House ” was re-plenished from time to time from this source, andits contents were undoubtedly frequently made useof by the surgeon in the practice of his profession.

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