“℞—_Sal ammoniac and rock salt, half a pound of each; saccharine alum, one-quarter of a pound._ These to be reduced to a powder and placed in an alembic of glass, so as to obtain a liquid, with which the teeth must be rubbed by means of a little scarlet cloth.” If these means of cure are of no avail, on account of the presence of hardened limosity (tartar), this must be removed by scraping it away with appropriate instruments. “Et si cela ne profite, à cause qu’il y a là des limosites endurcies; soient rasclées avec des rapes et spatumes.”[252] Against the setting of teeth on edge (_endormement et congelation des dents_; _stupor et congelatio dentium_), Guy de Chauliac recommends hot wine or aqua vitæ, to be kept in the mouth; or the teeth to be rubbed with roasted salt; or the application to them of hot roasted walnuts and filberts and similar things which convey heat; or lastly, masticating substances, which possess heating properties, such as the portulaca (purslane) and its seeds. The chapter on the extraction of teeth and of dental roots is a simple summary of what Abulcasis says on this subject; some passages of this author are copied word for word. Whilst the Arabian surgeon treats rather lengthily of the deformities of the dental arches, and the methods to be employed in correcting these, Guy de Chauliac almost entirely neglects this subject and limits himself to saying that if any tooth has become abnormally lengthened, it is necessary to reduce it to the right length with the file, but operating “wisely,” so as not to loosen it: “S’il y a quelque dent augmentée outre nature, soit egalisée et applanie sagement avec la lime, que ne soit ébranlée.” Guy strongly throws doubt upon the efficacy of supposed eradicating remedies. In regard to this he says: “The ancients mention many medicaments, which draw out the teeth without iron instruments or which make them more easy to draw out; such as the milky juice of the tithymal with pyrethrum, the roots of the mulberry and caper, citrine arsenic, aqua fortis, the fat of forest frogs. But these remedies promise much and operate but little—_mais ils donnent beaucoup de promesses, et peu d’operations_.” From the book of Guy de Chauliac we can gather a very important fact, which is worth mentioning here; that is to say, that some surgeons of that period made use already of anesthetic inhalations, especially for amputations. Here is what Guy says:[253] “Some prescribe medicaments which send the patient to sleep, so that the incision may not be felt, such as opium, the juice of the morel,[254] hyoscyamus, mandrake, ivy, hemlock, lettuce. A new sponge is soaked by them in these juices and left to dry in the sun; and when they have need of it they put this sponge into warm water and then hold it under the nostrils of the patient until he goes to sleep. Then they perform the operation.”