GEROLAMO CAPIVACCI, of Padua, repeats the advice (already given by preceding authors) to avoid, in eating and drinking, the rapid changes from heat to cold, and _vice versa_, since, says he, nature does not tolerate these rough changes.[315] In the mercurial treatment of syphilis,[316] he recommends the patient, as soon as the action of the remedy manifests itself in the oral cavity, to keep a piece of gold in his mouth, that the mercury, on account of its particular affinity, may unite with the gold and the harmful effects of this strange remedy on the mouth may be thus avoided. A strange method of curing mercurial stomatitis! JOHANN SCHENCK VON GRAFENBERG (1530 to 1598), a celebrated doctor of Freyburg-in-Breisgau, has left us, in his _Observationes medicæ_, a very rich and interesting collection of clinical cases. In this work he refers to many observations upon dental diseases by earlier authors, which, however, have already been noted by us in their time and place. Among other things, Schenck von Grafenberg relates that Cardanus was able, more than twenty times, to calm a violent toothache which tormented him by lightly pressing the sick tooth between the thumb and index finger of his left hand. PETER FOREEST (1522 to 1597), a very famous Dutch doctor of Alkmaar, repeats the very old error—already in decisive terms denied by Andreas Vesalius—that women have only twenty-eight teeth, whilst men usually have thirty-two. To the two central incisors he gives the name of _columellares_. Sugar and all sweet things, says this author, are very harmful to the teeth, and he gives as a proof the fact that apothecaries have, in general, very bad teeth, on account of the frequency with which they taste syrups and the like. Perhaps things are now changed, since I am not aware that chemists in our days are to be distinguished by the bad state of their teeth! In regard to toothache, Foreest records an important observation which he had made on himself; an aching tooth which a surgeon had not succeeded in extracting, but which was simply loosened, ceased, without anything else being done, from giving him pain, and in a short while became firm again, and he continued to use this tooth for about five years. However, on a renewal of the pain he was obliged at last to have it extracted. On the strength of this observation, the author believes that in certain appropriate cases, recourse may be had to the luxation of a tooth, rather than to its extraction to obtain a cessation of toothache. This method of cure had already been advised by a still earlier writer, that is, by Avicenna. When a subluxation produces the rupture of the dental nerve, this, in its results is equivalent to a replantation.