“The pain in the teeth is lessened by picking the gums with the bones of the sea dragon. It is also very beneficial to pick the gums with the sharp bone of the puffin.[149] If the same be pounded together with white hellebore, and the mixture thus obtained be rubbed on the diseased teeth, they may be made to fall out without pain. The ashes, also, of salt fish burnt in an earthen vase, with the addition of powdered marble, is a remedy against toothache. Frogs are also boiled in a hemina[150] of vinegar, the decoction being then used to wash the teeth with; but this, however, must be kept in the mouth for some length of time. In order to render this remedy less nauseous, Sallustius Dionisius used to hang several frogs, by their hind feet, over a vase in which he boiled the vinegar, so that the juices of the animals might drip into this from their mouths. To make loose teeth firm, some advise the soaking of two frogs, after having cut off their feet, in a hemina of wine, and the washing of the mouth with the latter. Others tie them, whole, on the jaws. Some, to strengthen unsteady teeth, rinse them with a decoction made by boiling ten frogs in three sextaries[151] of vinegar, until the liquor is reduced to one-third. By others, thirty-six hearts of frogs are well boiled in a sextary of old oil, in a copper vessel, and the oil is then used against toothache, dropping it into the ear, on the side of the pain. Some, after having boiled the liver of a frog, pound it with honey, and smear it on the sore teeth. If the teeth are decayed and fetid, many counsel the drying of a hundred frogs in an oven, leaving them there for one night, then the addition of an equal weight of salt, reducing the whole to powder, and rubbing the teeth with it. In such cases the ashes of crabs are also used. That of the murex[152] is adopted as a simple dentifrice.” “The cutting of teeth is facilitated by rubbing the gums of the child with the ashes of dolphin’s teeth mixed with honey, or even simply by touching the gums with a tooth of this animal.”[153] In Chapter XXXIV of Book XXXVI it is said that the decoction of gagates[154] in wine cures the diseases of the teeth; and in Chapter XLII of the same book are praised the dentifrice powders made of pumice stone. From the examination of Pliny’s work several important facts come out. The diseases of the teeth were, in those days, most common; very often we find mention of loose teeth, and the medicines suited to make them firm again; from which we may deduce the great frequency of alveolar pyorrhea. It is reasonable to think that such a fact was caused principally by the intemperate life of those times, in which the followers of Epicurus were extremely numerous and the unbridled desire for pleasure reached such a degree that no abhorrence was felt of provoking vomit during the course of a long banquet, in order to continue dining merrily.