Page 142 - My FlipBook

144 SECOND PERIOD—THE MIDDLE AGES

the testimony of persons well worthy of belief), at about the age of seventy
got five or six new teeth. The Conciliator^ testifies to having seen teeth
grow anew—smaller, however, and weaker than the first—in persons who
had lost them before the age of sixty years).
In regard to the pathology and therapy of the teeth, Guy but rarely
abandons the footsteps of the Arabian writers. Following the example
of one of these, Ali Abbas, he admits five or six dental maladies: pain,
corrosion, congelation, and agacement (teeth set on edge), limosity or
fetidness, fall or loosening.- As to the cure, this is divided into universal
and particular. The former includes, before all, hygienic rules, and
then purgatives, bloodletting of the cephalic vein or the veins of the
lips or tongue, revulsion, obtained by means of cupping glasses, friction,
etc., and the remedies for curing the rheums of the head, or for throwing
out the phlegmatic humors (pyrethrum, mastic, and the like).
The hygienic rules are the following: Not to eat food apt to putrefy,
such as fish and milk foods; to avoid food or drink either too hot or too
cold, and especially the rapid succession of cold and hot, or vice versa;
not to bite hard things, nor to eat viscous food, such as figs and confec-
tioner\' made with honey; to avoid certain foods which are known to be
bad for the teeth, such as leeks; not to clean the teeth too roughly, but
to rub them with honey and burnt salt, to which, very advantageousl)',
ma\- be added some vinegar.
Before speaking of the special methods of cure of single dental affec-
tions, Guy observes that operations on the teeth are particular (proper)
to barbers and to "dentatores,"'^ to whom doctors have abandoned
them. But it is safest of all, says he, to have such operations performed
under the direction of doctors. These, however, to be in a position to
give advice in regard to diseases of the teeth, must know the various
methods of cure which are suited to these diseases, that is to say, mouth
washes, gargles, masticatories, fillings, evaporations, anointments, rubbings,
fumigations, cauterizations, sternutatories, instillations into the ears, and
manual operations.
Lastly, Guy notes that the '' deutator'^ must be provided with all the
appropriate instruments, that is, with "rasoirs, rapes, spatumes, droits
et courbes, eslevatoires simples et a deux branches, tenailles dentelees,
et diverses esprouvettes, cannules, deschaussoirs, tarieres, aussi des
limes, et plusieurs autres necessaires a cette besogne" (in Latin: rasoriis,
raspatoriis, et spatuminibus rectis et curvis, et levatoriis simplicibus

' I'ictro of All)an() (1250 to 1316), rlu- writer of" many books, amono; which one bearing
the title of Conciliator cliff erentiorum philosophorum et priecipue medicorum, is often quoted
by Ciuy de Chauliac and by many others under the name of Conciliator.
Nicaise, p. 505.
-' ' Appropriatje barbitonsoribus et dentatoribus.
* In one Latin manuscript of 1461 instead of Jcntator we already find the word dcntista.