Among the natives of New South Wales, it is the custom when a youth reaches virility to knock out his front teeth with a stone; this operation being carried out by the _kuradshis_ or wizards. The savages of Peru are also in the habit of making the front teeth fall out; the reason of the custom is that the space thus made is regarded by them as an embellishment.[40] CHAPTER V. THE GREEKS. An ancient Greek physician—Asklepios, afterward called Æsculapius[41]—by the ability he displayed in the art of healing, so impressed the minds of the simple and uncultured at that primitive epoch as to be held in repute rather as a god than as a man. Not only was he held to be the author of wonderful cures, but it was also affirmed that he had resuscitated the dead; no doubt from his having in some case or other of apparent death restored the individual to consciousness by the assistance he rendered him. Exaggeration, so natural to ignorant minds, afterward did the rest, and magnified the healing and restoring powers of Æsculapius to such an extent that it is not to be wondered at that he should have been looked upon as a divine being. With the lapse of time, various traditions formed around his name, among which there was, however, finally such discrepancy that the popular voice spoke no more of one, but of many Æsculapii,[42] and to one of these was attributed, among other merits, that of having invented the probe and the art of bandaging wounds, while another was held to be the inventor of purgatives and of the extraction of teeth. According, therefore, to these traditions, dental surgery had its origin with Æsculapius, the god of Medicine. But what was the precise epoch in which this benefactor of humanity lived? We learn from Homer that two sons of Æsculapius, Machaon and Podalirius,[43] took special part, as doctors, in the siege of Troy. This celebrated siege, which lasted ten years, took place in the twelfth century before the Christian era (that is, 1193 to 1184 B.C.); admitting, therefore, the account of the parentage to be authentic, one may argue therefrom that Æsculapius must have lived between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries B.C. Many temples were built and dedicated to Æsculapius; these were called _asklepeia_, after the Greek form of his name. The priests were called _Asklepiadi_, and alleged their direct descent from Æsculapius himself. The temples of Æsculapius became so numerous in time that they were to be found in almost every Greek city. The most celebrated were those of Epidaurus, Cos, Cnydus, and Rhodes, as well as that of the great city of Agrigentum, in Sicily. The Asklepiadi not only performed the temple rites, but were doctors at the same time, for as interpreters of the wisdom of the god, they also occupied themselves in curing the sick. From this it resulted that these temples became in time, through observation and experience, schools of medical science.