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THE ROMANS 113

of some remedies counselled In Damocrates, b\' Andromacluis the elder,
and by Archigenes. Apollonius, as a medicament against odontalgia,
advised that the juice of the beet root be dropped into the nostrils, or
else a liquid prepared from cumin seed, myrrh, cucumber, and woman's
milk. Heraclides of Tarentum recommended against the pains and
looseness of teeth that a xinoiis decoction of black \eratrum, mandrake,
and h\osc\amus root should be kept in the mouth. Criton prescribed,
for strengthening loose teeth, that the mouth should be frequently washed
with a vinous decoction of lentisk, myrtle, and gall-nuts.
-'^'^Cklius Aurelianus. In the book De ruorhis aciitis et chronicis,
written by Celius Aurelianus (who lived, according to some, in the third
centur\-, according to others, in the fourth or at the beginning of the fifth
J,
a very interesting chapter on odontalgia is found. He shows himself to be,
for the most part, a follower of Celsus. During the violence of the pain
he advises abstinence from food and rest in bed with the head somewhat
raised. As remedies he recommends several mouth washes (infusions or
decoctions made with wine or vinegar and with various drugs: ironwort,
acacia, mercury herb, mandrake, cinquefoil, poppy, verbascum, h\os-
c\amus, figs, stag's horns, etc.), and besides, the application of wool
soaked in hot oil on the cheek of the affected side, or the application of
little warm bags, and also that some hot oil, or the juice of fenugreek,'
should be kept in the mouth, or milk with honey. When the pain is
excessively violent, he has recourse to bloodletting, and after two days'
fasting, he begins to feed the patient with liquid and warm food. If the
bowels are closed he prescribes the use of clysters, and when, in spite of
all, the pain persists, he has recourse to scarified cuppings on the cheek,
in correspondence with the pain. In certain cases he also proceeds to
scarification of the gums, or else he detaches them all around from the
tooth, by means of a special instrument called a pericharacter. It would
often turn out useful to apply to an aching tooth a grain of incense warmed
b\- the fire and wrapped in a thin piece of cloth, or to press between the
teeth, where the pain is situated, several pieces of cloth, in succession, in
which some powder of incense has been wrapped, and which are dipped
into hot oil before being used. The author, moreover, commends ex-
ternal fomentations made by means of sponges soaked with emollient
decoctions and afterward squeezed; and also the application of moder-
ately hot cataplasms.
When the odontalgia has already become inveterate and recurs in
paroxysms, separated by intervals of calm, Celius Aurelianus counsels,
among other things, that the general health be strengthened b}' temperate
living, exercise, rubbing of the whole bod\ (an ancient practice, now

'Trigonella fcenum graecum, a papilionaceous plant.