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
2. Evacuate or dissipate the morbid humors; this may be effected
by various means, namely, by purgatives, by bleeding, by gingival
scarification, by the application of leeches on the site of the pain,
by cupping on the back of the neck, or on the shoulders.
3. Applying in each single case the medicaments best adapted for
calming the pain.
The author here goes through a long enumeration of anti-odontalgic
remedies that offer no particular interest, as they are not at all new.
When a decayed tooth becomes the seat of excessive pain, and this does
not yield to any remedy, one must either have recourse to extraction or
cauterize it; this can be done either with potential caustics—such as
oil of vitriol, aqua fortis—or with the actual cautery. By cauterizing,
Paré adds, one burns the nerve, thus rendering it incapable of again
feeling or causing pain.
Erosion or caries[304] is the effect of an acute and acrid humor, that
corrodes and perforates the teeth, often to their very roots. To combat
this morbid condition, even when it is not accompanied by pain, one
must also have recourse (besides general treatment) to cauterization
either with oil of vitriol, with aqua fortis, or with a small actual
cautery.
If, as often happens, that the seat of the erosion lies in such a
manner between two teeth as to make it impossible to apply caustics or
other medicaments, one must file just sufficiently between the healthy
and the corroded tooth to render the part accessible, taking care,
however, to file more on the side of the affected tooth than on that of
the healthy one.
The file may be used, besides, to plane down a tooth that stands out
above the level of the others, and for similar purposes.
If one or more teeth have been shaken by a blow or a fall, or have come
out of their alveoli altogether, the surgeon should not remove them,
but rather reduce them and bind to the neighboring teeth, that they may
entirely reacquire their original firmness.
In allusion to this subject, Ambroise Paré refers to the case of a
friend of his, who having sustained, through a blow from the hilt of
a dagger, a fracture of the lower jaw with almost complete expulsion
of three teeth from their alveoli, had the fracture reduced by him;
after replacing the teeth and binding them to the neighboring ones,
he prescribed astringent mouth washes and liquid or semiliquid
nourishment, such as meat juice, _panada_, barley soup, jelly, and such
like. The patient was completely cured and able to masticate with the
three teeth as well as before.
Also in the case of extraction of a healthy instead of a diseased
tooth, Paré recommends replacing it immediately and binding it to the
neighboring ones, for, he says, by this means the tooth can take root
again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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