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110 FIRST PERIOD—ANTIQUITY

happens in inflammations of the soft parts. To my astonishment, 1
had to persuade myself that inflammation may arise even in a tooth, in
spite of the dental substance being hard and lapideous. But another
time, when I again was attacked by odontalgia, I perceived very distinctly
that the pain was not localized in the tooth, but rather in the inflamed
....
oums. Havinp-, therefore, suffered these two kinds of pain, I have ac-
o o-
(juired the absolute certainty that, in certain cases, the pain is situated in
the gums, in others, on the contrary, in the very substance of the tooth."
When a tooth becomes livid, Galen deduces from this that the tooth is
the seat of a morbid process equivalent to inflammation. Besides, he
says, we cannot be surprised that the teeth may be subject to a phlogistic
process, when we consider that these, like the soft parts, assimilate
nourishment. The teeth, by efi^ect of mastication, are continually worn
down, but nutrition repairs the losses, and they, therefore, preserve the
same size. But when a tooth from want of its antagonist is consumed but
little or not at all by mastication, we see that it grows gradually longer, for
the very reason that under such conditions the increase due to nutrition is
not counteracted by a corresponding waste.
The nutritive process of the teeth may, according to Galen, be altered
either by excess or by defect; from which arise morbid conditions, quite
different the one from the other. An excess of nutrition produces a phlo-
gistic process analogous to that of the soft parts; a defect of nutrition makes
the teeth thin, arid, and weak. The first of these pathological states is
met with especialh' in young men and must be fought against with the
ordinary antiphlogistic means, designed to eliminate the excess of humors
(evacuant, resolvent, revulsive, and astringent remedies). As to defect
of nutrition, this is met with most frequently in old people. It has the
efl^ect not only of making the teeth thin, but also of enlarging the alveoli,
from which there results a looseness of the teeth more or less noticeable.
Against this morbid condition we do not possess, says Galen, any direct
remedy; however, it can be combated, up to a certain point, by strength-
ening the gums with astringent medicaments, so that they may close
tightly around the teeth and thus make them firm.
Dental caries is produced, according to Galen, by the internal action
of acrid and corroding humors, that is, it is produced in the same manner
as those cutaneous ulcers which appear without any influence of external
causes. 1 he cure must consist in acting upon such vicious humors by
means of local or general medicaments according to circumstances and
also in strengthening the substance itself of the teeth by the use of astrin-
gents and tonic remedies.*
After these prtiiininary remarks, Galen gives a minute description of

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