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THIRTEENTH TO EH'TEEXTH CENTURIES 145

et cum duohus raniis, tenaculis dentatis, et probis diversis, cannulis,
scalpis et terehellis, et etiani liiiiis."'
Whilst Abulcasis bitterh' declaims against the barbers, because thev,
in spite of their ignorance, permit themselves to perform operations on
the teeth, and especialh- to extract them, Guy de Chauliac speaks in quite
a different tone. He recognizes that such operations are particular,
which is as much as to say, in modern language, that the practice of dental
surger}- constitutes a specialty. Guy, it is true, expresses his desire that
dental operations be performed, for greater security, under the direction
of doctors, but he does not use one word of blame or contempt against the
dentatoresy thus leaving it to be understood that, according to him, their
art had every good reason to exist. Besides, from the enumeration of
the surgical instruments which Guy says are necessary to them, we can
easih- argue that the dentatores of the fourteenth century were not, as
at the very hrst one might be led to believe, mere "tooth-pullers," but
that, at least, the best among them cured teeth as well as the scanty
knowledge and means of cure then available enabled them to do.
In the chapter on odontalgia,- Guy de Chauliac distinguishes between
the pains, the point of departure of which is in the tooth itself, and those
resulting from disease in other parts, for example, from apostema^ of
the gums; in these latter cases, in order to cause the pain to cease, it is
necessary to cure the part from which the pain is derived, taking into
account the nature of the disease and its causes.
When the pain is situated in the root of the tooth or in its nerve, it
is necessary, says the author, to distinguish whether it is caused by an
accumulation of morbid matter, or whether it is, instead, a simple pain
u'lthoiit matter. Besides, it is necessary to distinguish, in the first case,

* Nicaise, p. 506. To make clear the meaning of these names, the following must be
noted: The rasoirs (rasoria) were instruments with one cutting edge alone, which were
used in performing any kind of incision. Raspatoria (rapes, /. e., rasps) signified almost
certainly scrapers, not rasps. The spatumes were instruments with one or two cutting edges,
of various shapes, but usually small. Esprouvettes (Latin, probiv) were the sounds or probes.
Scalpra means scalpels, but in this case has especially the meaning of dechaussoirs, gum
lancets. Terebelli (French, Tarieres) are the trepans or perforators.
^ Nicaise, p. 507.
^ By the word apostema, Guy de Chauliac, and many other writers, indicate ever\' patho-
logical condition in which the normal elements of the tissues are separated from one another,
by a humorous or gaseous gathering, or by any phlogistic or neoplastic formation. The
word signifies, in Greek, removal, just like the Latin word ahscessus. In fact, these two
terms were often used as synonyms; but at other times the word apostema had a wider
meaning, and included, besides the abscess, the phlegmon, the furunculus, the anthrax, .ery-
sipelas, herpes, and other dermal affections, especially the pustulous ones, edema and other
serous gatherings, subcutaneous emphysema and other gaseous gatherings, glandular
tumefactions, cysts, benignant and malignant tumors.
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