An ergonomically balanced safety scalpel that includes apair of matched handle halves slidingly cooperative into aclosed position and an open position. When in use, the handlehalves are slidingly positioned in the closed position to exposethe blade. The handle halves are slidingly repositioned relativeto each other into the open position, when the safety scalpel isnot in use, to extend one handle half relative to the otherhandle half whereby the blade is shielded therebetween.
