Osteotome, anyone? You are looking at a reproduction of medical tools used in Ancient Roman surgery during the first century to cut into human bones. Many Ancient Roman medical instruments were made out of copper or copper alloys like brass (copper and zinc) or bronze (copper and tin). Educated physicians in Ancient Rome believed that copper had healing properties. And it turns out, they were right.
Although the mechanisms of how copper prevents infection are still not understood, in modern scientific experiments it has demonstrated antimicrobial properties, destroying bacteria (like e-coli), viruses (like influenza), and even fungi (like Candida albicans).
Ancient Romans mined copper extensively — the island of Cyprus actually comes from the word “copper,” showing its importance. At the high point of Roman copper mining, the Empire procured 17,000 tons a year, causing enormous pollution: ice layers in Greenland have recorded copper contamination in high concentrations from those eras. In Ancient Jordan, the Roman copper mine at Wadi Faynan was so polluting that the area is still filled with toxic slag from the smelting, and vegetation and local livestock have high levels of copper in their tissue.
Nevertheless, perhaps because copper ultimately causes DNA to be denatured, and thus destroys harmful microscopic pathogens, Ancient Roman doctors used it successfully in their medical treatments. In the early first century, the physician Aulus Cornelius Celsus used copper oxide mixed with other ingredients to treat venereal disease and chronic ulcers; the writer Pliny (d. 79 CE) used black copper oxide mixed with honey to destroy intestinal worms. And, as this image of the ancient bone-cutters suggests, the many medical tools that were made of copper kept a high degree of hygiene millennia before anyone knew what a microbe was.
Lost to us today is how the Ancient Romans (and other ancient peoples) ended up concluding that copper was beneficial. The process of trial-and-error often times brought about horrific mistakes (like mercury poisoning) before the scientific method was developed. In the case their use of copper, however, the Romans were correct.
