Figure 1. Early Roman Bronze Scalpels
Brief: The knife was one of the earliest tools of invention by humans and the tool itself can be applied in many ways. However, the surgical scalpel did not differentiate itself from the rest of the knives until the time of Hippocrates, roughly 300 B.C. He described them as macairion, derived from machaira, an old sword with a broad cutting blade on one edge and a sharp point. Originally scalpels were made of bronze and other easily accessible metals and remained that way until iron and steel became easier to manufacture.
