It would appear that the author is here describing a prosthetic method, which he had never practised himself; and this results from the fact of his advising the perforation of the natural teeth for the passage of the silver wire destined to keep the prosthetic piece in its place. Evidently desiring to describe the mode practised by the specialists of those days for fixing artificial teeth, he erroneously imagines that the metal thread was passed through the holes drilled in the natural teeth; this would have been impossible, first, because of the atrocious pain due to the sensibility of the dentine and of the dental pulp, and then because of the pathological consequences to which the perforation of the teeth would have given rise. We may, therefore, surely hold that Purmann is simply describing, and not even accurately, a prosthetic method already in use among the specialists of that period. On examination of the passage cited above—which, however, is not so clear as might be desired—it would appear that the models of which the author speaks were most probably quite different from those in use now. It is almost certain that the specialists of those days first made a sketch of the prosthetic part to be constructed, using for the purpose a piece of wax which they partly modelled with the hand and partly carved; and after having tried on this model until it fitted perfectly in the mouth, and was in every way satisfactory, they probably passed it on to a craftsman to make an exact reproduction of it in bone or ivory. In the year 1632 a little book was published in Naples, having for its title, _Nuova et utilissima prattica di tutto quello ch’al diligente Barbiero s’appartiene; composta per Cintio d’Amato_.[378] This pamphlet was reprinted in Venice in 1669, and again in Naples in 1671. We here make mention of it, not for any special importance which it really has as regards the development of the dental art, but because of its being most probably _the first book in the Italian language in which dental matters are spoken of independently of general medicine and surgery_. TOMMASO ANTONIO RICCIO. The edition of 1671 was published under the supervision of Tommaso Antonio Riccio, who was for many years a disciple of Cintio d’Amato, and who greatly eulogizes his master and praises his work. He expresses himself in the following bombastic manner: “This book, the offspring of Master Cintio d’Amato, excellent in the Barber’s Art, ought to find a place in the bosom of Eternity; because by reason of its having been twice given to the light, it has proved its worthiness to live forever in the memory of men, gaining for itself, by its excellence, immortal glory before all such as are practised in the Art.”