Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/127



same time, however, he should not neglect to question the patient very closely about the manner in which the wound was inflicted, for in this way he may be able to infer the existence of a contusion, or even a fracture of the skull, of which no material evidences are discoverable. Important information may also be gathered by passing the hand over the seat of injury in the bone,—information which the employment of the probe is not competent to convey.

[Twenty-one additional chapters are devoted to wounds of the head, every possible phase of the subject being handled by Hippocrates in the most careful and thorough manner.]