In the seventeenth century, about which we are now to speak, we shall have to call attention to many facts of the highest importance for the development of dentistry, and with regard to literature, it is worthy of note that while the publications on dentistry that appeared in the various countries of Europe during the preceding century only amounted to about twenty (taking also into account several pamphlets on the famous golden tooth!), in the seventeenth century the number was considerably higher, that is, about a hundred. We shall speak of the most important of these, as also of the works on general medicine or on surgery of the same period, that present some interest from the point of view of dentistry. JOHANN STEPHAN STROBELBERGER, physician to the imperial baths of Carlsbad, published in the year 1630 a very curious book, the title of which, being translated, runs somewhat as follows: _Complete Treatise of Gout in the teeth, or, more properly said, of Odontagra or toothache; in which are set forth, theoretically and practically, for the use of physicians and surgeons, the means of mitigating these pains, as well as the various modes of ably extracting teeth with or without instruments_.”[332] This book merely presents some interest, because it gives us a clear idea of the pitiful state in which the dental art still was in the first half of the seventeenth century, and shows us most clearly what enormous progress our specialty has made in little less than two centuries. Apart from this, Strobelberger’s monograph is of no importance, it being nothing more than a most accurate compilation of all that is to be found on the subject of dental affections in earlier works, especially from the medical point of view; the surgical part of dental therapeutics is treated in a much less complete manner, and prosthesis is entirely excluded from the plan of the work, which, however, is fully in accordance with the title of the book. Under the generic name of gout,[333] or podagra, are meant, says the author (Chapter I), all the affections produced by diseased humors, falling “by drops” into the articular cavities and the parts surrounding them. Strictly speaking, however, only gout in the feet is named _podagra_, whilst when the disease is seated in other parts of the body it is indicated by other names, gout in the hands being called _chiragra_; in the fingers _dactilagra_; in the knee, _gonagra_; in the elbow, _pechiagra_; in the shoulder, _omagra_; in the spinal column, _rachisagra_, and so on. When the seat of the evil is in the teeth or in their articulations, by analogy it is denominated odontagra, or odontalgia, an affection which Paul of Ægina was the first to consider as being of a gouty nature (Chapter II).