“I am well aware,” adds Fauchard, “that it can be alleged in favor of this last prejudice that the celebrated Italian doctor Valsalva indicates with great precision the point in which the actual cautery is to be applied to the ear, in order to calm toothache. He also determines the size of the iron and the manner of applying it. The authority of so celebrated an author, whose opinion is certainly worthy of respect, should induce me to believe that there may perhaps be some cases in which it is possible to use this remedy with success; nevertheless, I cannot persuade myself that such treatment can be useful in common cases of toothache. “At Nantes, a city of Brittany, I knew a Turk, a watchmaker by profession, who was renowned for this mode of curing toothache. But I also know that, in spite of the pretended cures, the greater number of those who put themselves into his hands were obliged finally to have recourse to me, in order to find relief for their sufferings. I afterward saw several other persons use the same remedy with no better success. “There are, besides, an infinity of other remedies vaunted as efficacious against toothache, but the greater number of them are so ridiculous and extravagant that it would be both tiresome and useless to speak of them. We will, nevertheless, give one more mentioned by M. de Brantôme.”[420] The author here quotes a passage of this writer, wherein he says that, having been suffering from toothache for two days, the apothecary of Elizabeth of France, wife of Philip II of Spain, brought him a most singular herb, which when held in the hollow of the hand had the virtue of making the pain cease immediately; and in this way he was, in fact, effectually cured. And here Fauchard expresses himself of the same opinion as Urbain Hémard, who believes the cure of toothache by means of words, or by the touch of paper on which certain signs are written, or remedies held in the hand, etc., to be merely the effect of the force of the imagination, and he opines that the patient, having a vivid belief in the mysterious thing proposed to him remains under the impression of an inward commotion, by the effect of which it may well be that the morbid humor is deviated from the painful part to other parts of the body. The effects of the various passions on the bodily functions are, says Fauchard, very well known. Thus, when under the influence of anger the wounded at times do not feel any pain, and those who suffering from a tormenting toothache go to a dentist to have the tooth drawn are sometimes seized by such great fear as not to feel the pain any longer, and go away, only to return later on renewal of their sufferings; although there have been cases where the pain ceased altogether.