A History of Dentistry from the most Ancient Times until the end of the Eighteenth CenturyGuerini, Vincenzo
History
A History of Dentistry from the most Ancient Times until the end of the Eighteenth Century
Guerini, Vincenzo
Dentistry -- History
“In the youth suffering from a phagedenic affection in the mouth, the
lower teeth fell out, as well as the front upper ones, which left a
cavity in the bone. The loss of a bone in the roof of the mouth causes
depression in the middle of the nose; the falling out of the upper
front teeth sometimes causes a flattening of the point of the nose. The
fifth teeth counting from the front ones had four roots (two of which
were almost united to the two contiguous teeth), the points of which
were all turned inward. Suppurations arising from the third tooth are
more frequent than from any of the others; and the dense discharge from
the nose and pains in the temples are specially owing to it. This tooth
is more apt to decay than the others; but the fifth does so, as well.
This tooth had a tubercle in the middle and two in the front; a small
tubercle in the internal part, on the side of the other two, had first
begun to decay.[58] The seventh tooth had only one large, sharp-pointed
root. In the Athenian boy, there was pain in a lower tooth on the left,
and in an upper one on the right. When the pain ceased, there was
suppuration of the right ear.”
This last fact—of the suppuration of the ear—is mentioned by
Hippocrates not as a simple coincidence, but as a fact intimately
connected with the cessation of the toothache. This may be argued
from the general ideas of Hippocrates in regard to the beginning and
the resolution of diseases. He considers a malady to be produced by
a humor, which becomes localized in a given point of the body. The
_crisis_ gives exit to the peccant humor,[59] and the mode in which
this is evacuated constitutes the _critical phenomenon_; the same may
be represented either by a profuse perspiration, by abundant urine, by
diarrhea, by vomiting, by expectoration, by bleeding or discharge of
other humors from the nose, by the issuing of pus from the ear, and
even by deposits on the teeth.[60] If by effect of _organic sympathies_
the morbid humor, instead of being thrown outward, be transported into
another region of the body, this constitutes the so-called _metastasis_.
The hints just given will serve to render some of the passages which we
quote from the works of Hippocrates more intelligible.
In the fourth book on _Epidemics_ we find among other clinical cases
the following:
“Egesistratus had a suppuration near the eye. An abscess manifested
itself near the last tooth; the eye directly got quite well; there was
a dense discharge of pus from the nostrils; and small, rounded pieces
of flesh were detached from the gums. It seemed as though a suppuration
at the third tooth were going to take place, but it went back; and
suddenly the jaw and the eye swelled up.”[61]
And farther on one reads:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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