An instrument called beluleum was invented during the long Peloponnesian War, over four hundred years before the Christian era.

It was a rude extracting-forceps, and was used by Hippocrates in the many campaigns in which he served.

His immediate successor, Diocles, invented a complicated instrument for extracting foreign bodies, called graphiscos, which consisted of a canula with hooks.

Otis states that it was not until the wars of Augustus that Heras of Cappadocia designed the famous duck-bill forceps which, with every conceivable modification, has continued in use until our time.

Celsus instructs that in extracting arrow-heads the entrance-wound should be dilated, the barb of the arrow-head crushed by strong pliers, or protected between the edges of a split reed, and thus withdrawn without laceration of the soft parts.