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FIRST PERIOD—ANTIQUITT
116
tibi dico, quoinodo hoc in rostro iteriDti 11011 erit, sic mi hi Jentes non doleant
toto aniio."^
The same must be done each following year, so as to continue to enjoy
the effects of such a cure!
Adamantius, an Alexandrine philosopher and physician, who prob-
ably lived in the fourth century, paid much attention to the diseases of
the teeth, as may be argued from two chapters of the Tetrahiblos ot
^tius. One of these chapters is entitled, according to the Latin trans-
lation of Giano Cornario: " Cura dentium a calido morbo doloroso
affectorum, ex Adamantio, sophista."" This writer clearly belonged to
the pneumatic school, founded as early as 69 a. d. by Athen^eus of Cilicia.
According to the pneumatics (so called, because they admitted the exist-
ence in the animal organism of an aeriform principle, pneuma, to which
they attributed great importance), heat and dryness gave rise to acute
maladies; the phlegmatic affections generally arose from humidity, and
melancholy was broughton by cold and dryness, as every object dries up and
becomes cold on the approach of death. The author says that the cure
must vary according as the disease affects in a greater degree the gums
or the teeth themselves with or w^ithout participation of the dental nerves
and neighboring parts. He makes, in regard to this, many subtle dis-
tinctions; but the remedies which he counsels do not offer to us any special
interest, being almost identical with those that had been recommended
by Galen and by other doctors prior to Adamantius. The latter also
gives much importance to dietetic therapy; he prescribes that such patients
should nourish themselves with pottages of barley, or of spelt, with eggs,
lettuce, pumpkins, and other cooling food, abstaining, however, from
wine.'^
The author enumerates among the causes of such dental affections the
dryness of the air, the autumnal season, the dry constitution of the indi-
vidual, a troubled life, and scanty nourishment. The use of sour and
piquant substances is not favorable to these patients, so much so that
the mulberry preserve produces, not unfrequently, violent dental pains
in them. Adamantius, therefore, advises, in such cases, not to use
strongly astringent mouth washes, but rather lenitive, moistening, and
emollient substances ; simple lukewarm water, decoction of bran, licorice
juice, starch with boiled must of wine diluted with warm water, milk,
especially asses' milk, decoction of mallows and the like.^
The work of Adamantius from which ^tius has taken the above-
mentioned chapters is lost to us. Of his writings there only remain to

' Swallow, I tell rhcc, as this water will not he aj^ain in my mouth, even so my teeth will
not ache for the whole yeiir.
^ The cure of teeth aHected hy warm |iaiiif"ul disease; according to Adamantius the sophist.
•''
/Etii tetrahihl., ii, sermo iv, cap. xxvii. * Ibid., cap. xxxi