Among the most usual operations, the author enumerates transplantation and especially replantation of the teeth.[458] Whenever, says Fauchard, a wrong tooth is extracted by accident, it ought to be immediately replanted, and the same ought to be done when violent pain renders it necessary to extract a tooth that is not much decayed, as the patient is thus relieved without losing the tooth.[459] Fauchard adds that this operation succeeds excellently in the case of incisors and canines, and very often, too, with small molars. [Illustration: FIG. 89 Cutting forceps (Fauchard).] [Illustration: FIG. 90 Cutting forceps (Fauchard).] After having spoken of transplantation, he says:[460] “There is another mode of replacing human or natural teeth which I have never yet seen used except by a provincial dentist whose name I ignore.” This special method consists in the transplantation of a tooth—it matters little whether recently extracted or not—after having made three or four notches in its root of about a line in depth. The author goes on to describe all the particularities of the operation, and then adds: “After twenty-five or thirty days one removes the thread, and the tooth is found to be firm in the alveolus, owing to the fact that this latter, exercising a pressure on the root on every side, becomes perfectly moulded upon it. In this manner, the tooth will remain mortised, and may be preserved for a considerable time.” [Illustration: FIG. 91 Pincers used by Fauchard in the operation of tying teeth with gold wire. The three larger figures represent natural or artificial teeth in which holes and horizontal grooves have been made in order to fix them with gold threads. The two smaller represent pieces of hippopotamus ivory with a vertical groove on each side, destined to fill large interdental spaces and to steady loose teeth by means of gold ligatures.] This method, invented by an unknown provincial dentist, has been recently applied by Znamenski, of Moscow, for the implantation of artificial teeth made of porcelain, of caoutchouc, or gutta-percha. One of Fauchard’s greatest merits consists in the improvements introduced by him in dental prosthesis and in his having, besides, been the first to treat of this most important part of dental art in a clear and particularized manner. The materials then most used in dental prosthesis were human teeth, hippopotamus tusks, ivory of the best quality, and ox bone.[461] The author minutely describes the methods to be followed to repair dental losses in every possible case and of whatever extent. According to the circumstances, Fauchard used, for maintaining artificial teeth in their place, linen, silk, or gold thread, passed through holes made in them, and tied to the natural teeth.