These rules are: (1) It is necessary to guard against the corruption of
food and drink within the stomach; therefore, easily corruptible
food--milk, salt fish, etc.--must not be partaken of, and after meals all
excessive movement, running exercises, bathing, coitus, and other causes
that impair the digestion, must also be avoided. (2) Everything must be
avoided that may provoke vomiting. (3) Sweet and viscous food--such as
dried figs, preserves made with honey, etc.--must not be partaken of. (4)
Hard things must not be broken with the teeth. (5) All food, drink, and
other substances that set the teeth on edge must be avoided, and
especially the rapid succession of hot and cold, and _vice versa_. (7)
Leeks must not be eaten, as such a food, by its own nature, is injurious
to the teeth. (8) The teeth must be cleaned at once after every meal from
the particles of food left in them; and for this purpose thin pieces of
wood should be used, somewhat broad at the ends, but not sharp-pointed or
edged; and preference should be given to small cypress-twigs, or the wood
of aloes, or pine, rosemary, or juniper, and similar sorts of wood, which
are rather bitter and styptic; care must, however, be taken not to search
too long in the dental interstices, and not to injure the gums or shake
the teeth. (9) After this it is necessary to rinse the mouth, using by
preference a vinous decoction of sage, or one of cinnamon, mastich,
gallia, moschata, cubeb, juniper seeds, root of cyperus, and rosemary
leaves. (10) The teeth must be rubbed with suitable dentifrices before
going to bed, or else in the morning before breakfast. Although Avicenna
recommended various oils for this purpose, Giovanni of Arcoli appears very
hostile to oleaginous frictions, because he considers them very injurious
to the stomach. He observes, besides, that whilst moderate frictions of
brief duration are helpful to the teeth, strengthen the gums, prevent the
formation of tartar, and sweeten the breath, too rough or too prolonged
rubbing is, on the contrary, harmful to the teeth, and makes them liable
to many diseases.
Shortly after Arculanus, when the Middle Ages are over--if they end with
the middle of the fifteenth century, though perhaps not if the later date
of the discovery of America is to be taken as the medieval terminal--John
de Vigo has in a few lines a very complete description of the method of
filling teeth with gold-leaf which deserves to be quoted. Only that it was
a common practice he would surely have described it more in detail,
though he could have added nothing to the significance of what he has to
say: "By means of a drill or file the putrefied or corroded part of the
teeth should be completely removed. The cavity left should then be filled
with gold-leaf."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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