Archigenes, too, like other great physicians of that time, recommended various remedies taken from the animal kingdom against diseases of the teeth, which now seem very strange to us, but at that period appear to have been in great use. Thus, it would be of great benefit to hold in the mouth for some length of time a mixture of vinegar and water in which a frog has been well cooked. The slough of a serpent, burnt and then reduced, by the addition of oil, to the consistency of solidified honey, would be a valuable remedy, which being introduced into a carious hollow, and plastered all around the tooth and on the surrounding parts, would cause the most violent pain to cease. And, moreover, desiring to cause a diseased tooth to fall out, it would be enough to apply to and press upon it a piece of the unburnt slough of a serpent. Two excellent anti-odontalgic remedies to be introduced into carious hollows would be roasted earth-worms and spikenard ointment mixed with the crushed eggs of spiders. It would be also of use to drop into the ear on the side of the aching tooth some oil of sesamum in which earth-worms have been cooked. When the pain is situated in broken teeth, Archigenes advises them to be cauterized with a red-hot iron. Against bleeding of the gums, he recommends rubbing them with very finely pulverized alum and myrtle and the application of astringent and tonic liquids. When odontalgia appears to depend upon an inflammatory condition, he advises the aching teeth to be plastered up with a mixture composed of red nitre, pounded peach kernels, and resin. Archigenes repeatedly recommends the cleaning of the teeth and of the carious cavities before applying to the former or introducing into the latter the appropriate remedies.[177] But Archigenes’ principal merit, so far as concerns the art of dentistry, consists in his having guessed that odontalgia, in certain cases, arises from a disease of the interior part of the tooth (viz., from inflammation of the pulp) and in having discovered an excellent method for curing such cases. When a tooth appeared discolored, without being affected by caries, and was the seat of violent pains, against which every remedy had proved of no avail, Archigenes perforated it with a small trephine, invented by himself for the purpose. He applied the instrument to that part of the crown which was most discolored and drilled right down to the centre of the tooth.[178] Without doubt this talented surgeon was induced to adopt this method of cure by the idea of the existence of morbid substances in the interior of the tooth and by the consequent indication of giving them a free exit.