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THE .m.iBIANS V.V.)
AvENZOAR. 1 he last of the great Arabian ph\ sieians was Axen/oar.
He was born at Penaflor, near Seville, in 1070 and died in 1162. He
became tamoiis b\ his \er\ \aluable work on medicine, entitled the
Tt'isir. It is strange, however, that in this book there is hardh' an\ thing
about the treatment of dental diseases. Against caries and looseness
of the teeth the autiior limits himself to recommending bloodletting
either from the ranine or the basilic vein. Apart from this, he speaks
neither of operations nor of remedies for diseases of the teeth.' Probablv
at the time in which Avenzoar wrote, that is, in the first half of the twelfth
centiirv, doctors in general did not occupy themselves with the curing
of teeth at all, this being abandoned entirelv to barbers and other
persons. This would sufficienth' e.xplain why this author is so silent
m regard to dental diseases.
But w'hat can have been the reason for doctors refusing thus contemptu-
ously to occupy themselves with so important a branch of therapeutics ?
In every age there have been a great number of ignorant persons, who
either in good faith, or else for imposture, have practised, within a more
or less limited circle, the art of healing, usualh' dedicating themseKes
to some particular class of diseases. Even in our da\s, notwithstanding
the superabundance of duly qualified doctors, there is, especially in
certain countries, no small number of quacks, secretists, bone-setters,
chiropodists, and the like. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that
in times when dentistry was still in its infancy there should have been
persons more or less ignorant who undertook tooth drawing and the
concoction and sale of specifics against odontalgia. The doctors, on their
part, under the pretext of being unwilling to have an\'thing to do with
these individuals, found it very convenient to dispense with the cure of
dental diseases and with the extraction of teeth, this operation being
sometimes too difficult for them, on account of their want of practice,
besides being almost always ver\ painful, and considered, even from the
most ancient times, capable of eventually producing evil consequences,
among which, in some cases, even the death of the patient.
But perhaps this was not the only reason for the fact above mentioned.
In the middle ages the extraction of one or more teeth was some imes
inflicted as a punishment; for example, for having eaten flesh during Lent,-
or on those found guilt\' of felon\', for having refused to contribute sums
of money demanded from them b}' their liege lord. Now, as this punish-
ment w^as carried out on the guilt\' ones b\' the executors of public
justice, it is onh' natural that doctors should have refused to practise an
operation which would have degraded their profession by bringing it
down nearly to the class of the hangman.

* Sprengel, Geschichre der Chirurgie, Part II, p. 279.
- Linderer, Handbuch der Zahnlitilkunde, Berlin, 1848, ii, 403.