ABSTRACT
The medical instruments used in Islamicate societies are of greatest interest for the history of surgery, since they count among the precursors of modern chirurgical tools. The most important sources of information are specialized Arabic texts, which are rather rare because surgery was not considered a part of the medical art in its strict sense by Greco-Islamicate physicians, but the specialty of craftsmen. The chapter gives an overview of the principal types of medical tools mentioned by Islamicate physicians and their Greek forerunners. It discusses the question whether instruments mentioned in literary sources were indeed used by practitioners.
