Ralph Jackson and Nils Fietje explored ancient Roman medicine, surgery and understanding of the body, with discussions about where the Romans got their information from, and vivid, eye-watering detail of surgical procedures.

The object unveiled at the event was a Roman surgical tool, designed for cutting out bladder stones - a procedure called lithotomy. One end is like a scoop, with a smooth surface on the outside, but roughened surface on the inside of the scoop. The other end is slotted, and you can see a small remnant of iron where a blade would have been.

The lithotomy tool is from the Wellcome collection at the Science Museum, reference number A622584.

Speaker: Ralph Jackson, Curator of Romano-British Collections at the British Museum

Facilitator: Nils Fietje, Medical Humanities Adviser, Wellcome Trust

For blind and partially sighted visitors:
Members of Wellcome Collection’s Visitor Services team have been trained in audio description techniques by VocalEyes. 

Blind and partially sighted visitors were invited to join members of the team before the event for audio descriptions of the ‘mystery object’, the event space and set-up, and descriptions of a small number of relevant objects from our library collections. 

Places for the audio description preceding these events are free but very limited. To book a place or for more information, please email access@wellcomecollection.org or call 020 7611 2222.