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PART III.

THIRD PERIOD—MODERN TIMES.

CHAPTER X.

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

We have now arrived at the sixteenth centurw The middle ages,
that is, the period of transition between ancient and modern civiHzation,
has now come to an end. Events of the highest importance, such as the
invention of printing (1436), the taking of Constantinople by the Turks
(1453), with the consequent emigration of many Greek men of letters
and science, who took up their residence in the West and especialh
in Italv, and lastly, the discovery of America (1492), marked the begin-
ning of a new era, and are the most essential factors in bringing about
the revival of art and science.
In the midst of the vigorous intellectual life which characterized the
sixteenth century, dentistry, too, like many other branches of science,
made very notable progress; we, therefore, in this period shall have to
record man\- important facts and many important names.
It is, indeed, in the sixteenth centur^ , and, to be more precise, about the
year 1544, that we meet for the first time with a monograph, in which
dental affections are spoken of independently of general medicine and
surgery. The book we allude to, by Walter Hermann Ryff, is also
noteworthy because it is not written like the preceding works, in Latin,
the customary language of the learned, but, instead, in German, that is,
in a living tongue.
As we are now mentioning the first German author on Dentistry, it
may be permitted us briefly to glance at the beginning of medicine and
dental art among the German peoples.
Among the Germans, as in other nations, the first to practise the healing
art were priests, priestesses, and wise women. To cure disease they
used partly empirical remedies, and partly witchcraft and superstitious
means of every kind. Thus, to facilitate dentition, it was thought an
excellent thing to pass a thread through the eyes of a mouse and then to