A History of Dentistry from the most Ancient Times until the end of the Eighteenth CenturyGuerini, Vincenzo
History
A History of Dentistry from the most Ancient Times until the end of the Eighteenth Century
Guerini, Vincenzo
Dentistry -- History
The treatment of toothache ought to differ according to its causes. If
the pain be owing to acidity, one uses medicines adapted for tempering
the acids; if it be owing to the action of saline substances, one has
recourse to remedies which dissolve them; if to worms, to such remedies
as destroy them, and so on. Purgatives and bleeding ought, however,
never to be used as remedies against toothache; for, far from doing
good, they often do harm. As to the other torments usually inflicted on
poor sufferers, they are the punishment of their sins, for God often
gives the unrighteous into the hands of doctors! (This language will
perhaps appear less strange when the reader comes to know that Carlo
Musitano was at one and the same time priest and physician!)
After a lengthy enumeration of medicaments to be used against
toothache, which we pass over in silence because already known, the
author speaks of two remedies which carry us back absolutely to the
days of Pliny! He relates us a fact experienced by himself, that, by
touching an aching tooth with the leg of a frog completely cleaned of
the flesh, the pain ceases altogether. Also, if the aching tooth be
touched with the root of a tooth extracted from the jaw of a corpse,
the pain ceases, the tooth becomes as cold as ice, and often, after a
certain time, it falls to pieces.
As to worms, the best mode of destroying them is by using bitter
substances, such as myrrh, aloes, colocynth, _centaurea minor_, etc.,
but sometimes the use of sweet substances, such as honey, is a good
means of drawing them out of the carious cavities!
Musitano also cites a great number of remedies against the setting on
edge of the teeth. Among the best of these he mentions urine applied to
the teeth whilst still warm! Alkali in general, and particularly lye,
such as is used for washing purposes, are good remedies against the
setting on edge of the teeth.
The treatment of loose teeth ought to vary according to whether this
pathological condition depends on old age, or on scurvy, on syphilis,
on superabundance of humors, etc. Sometimes, especially in old persons,
it may be useful to bind the teeth with gold wire, in order to prevent
their falling out, but this operation must be very ably performed,
otherwise it may give rise to inflammation.
Relative to artificial teeth, Musitano says that they are made of ivory
or hippopotamus tusks; of these last he does not speak as of a novelty;
we may, therefore, deem it probable that hippopotamus tusks were used
in Naples for making artificial teeth even before the Dutchman Anton
Nuck (contemporary of Musitano) made mention of them in his writings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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