In the following chapter[428] the author enumerates the various dental operations: “Cleaning the teeth, separating them, shortening them, removing the caries, cauterizing, stopping, straightening crooked teeth, steadying loose teeth, trepanning, simple drawing of teeth, replacing them in their own alveoli, or transplanting them to another mouth, and finally substituting artificial teeth for those wanting.” He then adds: “All these operations require in him who carries them out a light, secure, and skilful hand and a perfect theoretic knowledge, by which he may decide on the opportuneness of performing them, of deferring them, or of abandoning them altogether. In fact, one may know perfectly well how to carry out an operation and nevertheless undertake it in a case in which it is not at all proper to operate. Into such an error no one can fall save through sheer ignorance of the cause of the disease or of the right means of curing it. From this it must be concluded that the knowledge required in order to be a good dentist is not so limited as some imagine, and that the imprudence and the danger of placing one’s self in ignorant hands is as great as the temerity of those who undertake to exercise so delicate a profession without the knowledge of even its first elements.” Before speaking in detail of all the above operations, the author dedicates a lengthy chapter[429] to describing with the greatest minuteness the position to be given in general, as well as in special cases, to the head and body of the patient, and the manner in which the dentist should place himself with regard to the former, so as to be able to make a proper use of each of his hands. As a rule, Fauchard made the patient seat himself in a convenient arm-chair; in exceptional cases he placed him on a sofa, or on a bed. He draws this subject to a close with the following words: “It is, indeed, surprising that the greater part of those who practise tooth drawing should ordinarily seat the patient on the ground, this being both indecent and not very clean. This position is not only uncomfortable, but causes sometimes a sense of fear, especially in pregnant women, to whom it may, besides, prove very harmful. But it is still more surprising that certain authors should even nowadays affirm this to be the most convenient position, while it is instead one to be entirely rejected.”