“Sometimes worms are to be found in the carious cavities of the teeth, or in the deposit of tartar that covers them, and to these the name of dental worms has been given. Observations recorded by illustrious authors are extant which attest this. Not having ever seen these worms, I neither admit nor deny their existence. Nevertheless, I conceive the thing nor to be physically impossible, although at the same time I do not believe at all that these worms destroy the teeth or cause them to decay, but rather that the eggs of some insect having been introduced into the carious cavity of the tooth, either through alimentary substances or through the saliva, these eggs thus deposited have developed and produced the worms alluded to. However this may be, as they are not the real cause of the caries, their eventual presence does not require any particular consideration.” Fauchard again recurs to the subject of worms in Chapter VIII, in speaking of the particular causes of caries.[415] “It was, and is still, believed by the vulgar and also by some writers that all toothache is caused by worms, which little by little destroy the tissue of the osseous fibers and the nervous threads. If this were so, the explanation of pains and of decay in the teeth would be very simple. This opinion is founded on pretended experiences relating to these insects, which may, it is said, be made to fall out of the teeth by the smoke of henbane seeds; this, however, has been declared fabulous by Andry, dean of the medical faculty of Paris, as well as other similar facts which he exposes in his book on the generation of worms.[416] “Andry relates, however, that with the help of the microscope one may succeed in seeing certain worms that form beneath the deposit collected upon the teeth as the effect of want of cleanliness; these worms, he says, are exceedingly small and characterized by a small round head with a small black spot; the body is long and fine, pretty nearly like the worms seen in vinegar through the microscope. He adds that these worms destroy the teeth little by little, causing a bad odor, but not much pain. He believes it an error of the imagination to ascribe violent pains in the teeth to dental worms, and holds that these only produce a very slight, dull pain accompanied by itching.