Fabricius Hildanus relates, besides, many cases of dental fistula, cured by him through the extraction of roots or of decayed teeth. In one such case the fistula dated from fourteen years back. Fabricius Hildanus, contrary to the opinion of many other doctors, extracted a decayed tooth, and by this operation obtained, in a brief period of time, the complete recovery of the patient. Among the many very important clinical cases cited by Fabricius Hildanus, the following deserves to be recorded: In the year 1590 a woman presented herself to him who had a hard tumor in the space behind the last molar on the right side. The author, after having prepared the patient for the operation by the methods then in use (that is, by aperient medicine, by bleeding, and appropriate diet), destroyed the tumor by the application of escharotic substances. The remaining wound, however, defying all the cicatrizing remedies which the author had recourse to, one after the other, by reason of its being continually disturbed by the movements of the jaws, he then thought of maintaining the dental arches in a determined position, and this he obtained by means of two pieces of wood somewhat hollowed out above and below, which he placed on the right and on the left between the upper and the lower teeth, fixing them to the teeth themselves by brass wires passing through two openings made expressly in each of the two pieces of wood. In this way he succeeded in obtaining the absolute immobility of the jaws and the complete cure of the wound in a few days, during which time the patient was nourished with liquid food.[339] A very interesting case, inasmuch as it demonstrated the damage and peril which may result from certain absurd means of cure, was reported to this author by Claudio Deodato, physician to the Prince-Bishop of Basle. The case was that of a patient who, after having tried in vain a great number of remedies for a stubborn toothache, finally had recourse to the use of aqua fortis; but this substance, which in those days was in frequent use for dental caries and for toothache, produced most deleterious effects in the patient, that is to say, the loss of almost all his teeth, necrosis of the inferior jaw, with fistulous sinuses and ulceration of the neck, abundant sanious discharge, fever, a cachectic condition, incipient necrosis of the upper jaw, etc.[340] Fabricius Hildanus, consulted by Claudio Deodato about this most serious case, proposed both a local and a general treatment, the result of which is, however, not mentioned in his book.