Page 201 - My FlipBook

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURr \\)\

scarification, h\ the application of leeches on the site of the |ntin, In'
cupping on the back of the neck, or on the shoulders.
3. Apphing in each single case the medicaments best adapted for
cahiiing the pam.
The author here goes through a long enumeration of anti-odontalgic
remedies that ofFer no particular interest, as thev are not at all new.
When a decayed tooth becomes the seat of excessive pain, and this
does not \ield to any remedy, one must either have recourse to extraction
or cauterize it; this can be done either with potential caustics—such as
oil of vitriol, aqua fortis—or with the actual cauter\ . l^y cauterizing.
Pare adds, one burns the nerve, thus rendering it incapable of again feeling
or causing pain.
Erosion or caries^ is the effect of an acute and acrid humor, that corrodes
and perforates the teeth, often to their very roots. To combat this
morbid condition, even when it is not accompanied by pain, one must
also have recourse (besides general treatment) to cauterization either
with oil of vitriol, with aqua iortis, or with a small actual cauterw
If, as often happens, that the seat of the erosion lies in such a manner
between two teeth as to make it impossible to apply caustics or other
medicaments, one must file just sufficiently between the healthy and the
corroded tooth to render the part accessible, taking care, however, to file
more on the side of the affected tooth than on that of the health\- one.
The file ma\' be used, besides, to plane down a tooth that stands out
above the level of the others, and for similar purposes.
If one or more teeth have been shaken b\" a blow or a tall, or have come
out of their alveoli altogether, the surgeon should not remove them, but
rather reduce them and bind to the neig-hborino; teeth, that the\ ma\-
entirely reacquire their original firmness.
In allusion to this subject, Ambroise Pare refers to the case of a friend
of his, who having sustained, through a blow from the hilt of a dagger,
a fracture of the lower jaw with almost complete expulsion ot three
teeth from their alveoli, had the fracture reduced by him; after replacing
the teeth and binding them to the neighboring ones, he prescribed astrin-
gent mouth washes and liquid or semiliquid nourishment, such as meat
juice, panada, barle\ soup, jelly, and such like. The patient was com-
pletely cured and able to masticate with the three teeth as well as before.
Also in the case of extraction of a healthx instead of a diseased tooth.
Pare recommends replacing it immediately and binding it to the neighbor-
ing ones, for, he says, by this means the tooth can take root again.
As we have seen, the first author who speaks of replantation is Abulcasis,
but to Ambroise Pare belongs the merit of having treated the subject

' Lib. XV, cap. xxvii, vol. ii, p. 448.