A History of Dentistry from the most Ancient Times until the end of the Eighteenth CenturyGuerini, Vincenzo
History
A History of Dentistry from the most Ancient Times until the end of the Eighteenth Century
Guerini, Vincenzo
Dentistry -- History
After having spoken of the incisors and the canines, he says that the
ten upper molars generally have three roots, and very often four,
whilst the ten lower ones have only three; this is because the lower
jaw is harder than the upper, and also because the lower molars,
_estant assises sur la racine, et non suspendues, comme celles de la
mandibule d’en haut, n’avoient besoin de tant de racines pour leur
stabilité asseurance_.[300]
Ambroise Paré, too, admits that the teeth grow throughout the whole
lifetime, and that the wearing away consequent on reciprocal friction
and mastication is compensated in this way.
Galen had already affirmed, and Ambroise Paré also held erroneously,
that the exquisite sensibility of the teeth aids the sense of taste.
In speaking of the development of the teeth, Ambroise Paré says only
that they are already solid and osseous before birth, he himself
having observed this in dissecting the jaws of a child who had died
immediately after birth.
In Chapter VII, Book XIII,[301] Paré treats of fracture of the lower
jaw. The method of cure he proposes is altogether identical with that
of Celsus. With regard to the teeth, he says that “_si elles sont
divisées, ebranlées, ou separées hors de leurs alvéoles ou petites
cavités, elles doivent estre reduites en leurs places et seront liées
et attachées contre celles qui sont fermes, avecques un fil d’or ou
d’argent, ou de lin. Et les y faut tenir jusques à ce qu’elles soient
bien affermies, et le callus soient refait et rendu solide._”[302]
Toothache, says Paré,[303] is, of all others, the most atrocious pain
that can torment a man without being followed by death. It depends, in
many cases, on a humorous fluxion of a hot or cold nature which flows
into the alveolus, forcing the tooth outward, loosening it, and causing
the patient so much pain on the slightest pressure being exercised on
it, that he cannot dare to bite with it in the least. If, however, the
tooth is corroded, hollowed out, or pierced to the root, the pain is so
strong, when the patient drinks—particularly if the liquid is cold—that
he seems to have had a stab with a stiletto inside the tooth.
If the pain is acute and pungent, like that produced by needles
being thrust into the diseased tooth; if the patient complains of a
strong pulsation at the root of the tooth, and in the temples; if the
application of cold remedies calms the pain, all these signs indicate
that the cause of the evil is heat. Instead, the cause of the pain may
be held to be cold when the patient complains of a great heaviness
in the head, emits a quantity of saliva, and finds relief in the
application of hot remedies. In the treatment of toothache one must
fulfil the following three indications:
1. Regulate fittingly the mode of living.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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