DONATO ANTONIO OF ALTOMARE, a Neapolitan physician and philosopher, dedicated a long chapter of his _Ars medica_[313] to the subject of dental pains and their treatment. He classifies these pains with great accuracy, taking into account their seat and causes, and pointing out in each single case the method of cure to be followed according to the warm, cold, dry, or humid nature of the pain. In what he says, however, we do not find anything new. GIULIO CESARE ARANZIO (1530 to 1589), a celebrated surgeon and anatomist of Bologna, in which city he taught from the age of twenty-six years until his death, is of the opinion that parulides—that is to say, inflammations or abscesses of the gums—and epulides—that is fleshy excrescences of the same—are usually caused by caries or putrescence of the teeth; but that in certain individuals, from a peculiar weakness of the gums, these are easily attacked by inflammation when the wind is in the south. In the case of parulides, to soothe the pain and to accelerate the suppurative process, emollient substances should be used; afterward it is necessary to open the abscess with a lancet, to wash the mouth with mulse, and to aid the process of cicatrization by using syrup of roses. As to epulides, these must be made to disappear, by sprinkling the tumor with the powder of gall-nuts, or by moistening them frequently with a decoction of gall-nuts, or with sulphur water. But if they do not yield to these remedies, and are the cause of functional disturbances, the surest and most prudent method of cure would be the use of the red-hot iron. GIOVANNI ANDREA DELLA CROCE, a celebrated Venetian physician and surgeon, was the author of a most valuable treatise on surgery, which was published first in Latin (_Chirurgiæ universalis opus absolutum_, Venetitiis, 1573), and then in Italian under the title of _Chirurgia universale e perfetta_, Venezia, 1583. According to this author, dental fistulæ are more common to the lower jaw than to the upper one. To cure these fistulæ, it is necessary to extract the diseased teeth from which they originate, even should they ache but little or not at all. To confirm this, he relates in full a very interesting case of a dental fistula, that he cured by the extraction of a tooth which hardly ached at all. Flajani[314] chose to see in this case a precocious example of the opening of Highmore’s antrum through the alveolus. But the description given by Andrea della Croce of his case does not at all warrant this supposition. At the end of his book Andrea della Croce gives us the figures of many dental instruments, which have, however, nothing new about them.