Excerpt from A Treatise on the Medical and Surgical Diseases of Women History renders it certain that the Egyptians studied upon medical subjects, but with our present knowledge of the records left from that age of the world, we have no data from which to estimate the extent or accuracy of their knowledge. Nor are we able, with our acquaintance with Hebrew literature, to determine that any considerable amount of knowledge pertaining to this especial class of diseases was at that time in existence. With the advent of Hippocrates, 400 B. There seems to have been a revival of all that pertains to medical sub jects, and he especially seems to have made a careful study of the subject from actual dissections of the human body, and so far as our present information extends, he was the first to treat of the diseases of women in a methodical man ner. Precisely how much advancement was made during the next thousand years, it is only possible to surmise by the incidental cropping out of information in the extant writings of that day, that a uterine sound and specula were used, two inventions, or reproductions of very modern date.14 introduction. From the ruins of Pompeii was exhumed a bivalve speculum, an instrument only generally known in later times, after its introduction by Recamier in 1801, although alluded to as early as 1640 by Ambrose Pare. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."