Page 138 - My FlipBook

CHAPTER IX. —

THIRTEENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.

Bruno of Longobucco. After the Arabian period, the first author
whom we must mention is Bruno of Longobucco, of the school of Bologna,
who lived in the thirteenth century and wrote a treatise on surgery,
which gave him a certain renown.' This book, however, contains but
little about diseases of the teeth. The author shows himself a great friend
of the actual cautery, and advises its use in the cure of dental caries and
of various diseases of the gums. He says nothing about the extraction of
teeth; instead, he recommends, as a means for making a diseased tooth
fall out, that the milky juice of the tithymal be applied around its root
after having been reduced to the consistency oi paste by the addition
of flour.-
Lanfranchi, of Milan, another writer of the thirteenth century, who
acquired great fame by his book Chirurgia magna et parva—partially
translated into German, more than two centuries later, by Otto Brunfels
also shows himself very timid in the sphere of dentistry, and to combat
dental pains he recommends, by preference, the use of narcotics. He
is not at all favorable to the extraction of teeth; and especially that of
the molars is considered by hmi a very dangerous operation.''
Teodorico Borgognoni (1205 to 1298), known also under the name
of Teodorico of Cervia, is according to Haesar the first author who made
mention of sialorrhea following mercurial frictions. Worthy of note,
too, is what he says in regard to fistulas of the gums, or, in general,
of the maxillary region. He advises that in every case of this kind
special attention be paid to the state of the dental roots; when there is
a discharge of ichorous pus, the roots are certainly aff^ected; and then the
diseased teeth must all be extracted as soon as possible.''
John Gaddfsdfn, an English doctor who flourished at Oxford in
the first half of the fourteenth century, wrote a very curious medical book,
taken the greater part from Pliny and the Arabian writers and entitled
Rfjsa anglica: practica tricdicnuv a capitc ad pedes (English rose: the practice
of medicine from head to foot). In his time many strange methods of
cure were in use, sometimes simply ridiculous, and others even filthy;

' IJruni Chirurgia magna. - Sprengcl, Geschichte der Chirurgie, Part II, p. 280.
*
Sprengel, loc. cit.
' Sprengtl, loc. tit.