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THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURf I'lV)

deleterious effects in the patient, tliat is to sa\ , the loss of ahnost all his
teeth, necrosis of the inferior jaw, with fistulous sinuses and ulceration
of the neck, abundant sanious discharge, fever, a cachectic condition,
incipient necrosis of the upper jaw, etc/ Fabricius Hildanus, consulted
bv Claudio Deodato about this most serious case, proposed both a local
and a general treatment, the result of which is, howe\er, not menrionc-d
in his book.
'' ccntuna of medical and surgical observations and cures"-'
In the fifth
we find a case of oral surgery, to which it is worth while briefly to refer
here. It relates to an epulis situated next to the upper canine of the
left side. The tumor, already of ancient date, had at this time reached the
size of a walnut, w-as ver\- hard, livid in color, irregular in form, and
adhered somewhat to the upper lip; according to the author, it was of
a cancerous nature. After the usual preparacive measures, Fabricius
Hildanus proceeded to the ablation of the tumor, and to this end he first
pierced it with a curved needle and strong thread, in order to get a good
hold on it, and he then removed it entirely down to the bone, by means
of a curved bistour\.^
Fabricius Hildanus, having dissected several abortive fetuses of under
four months, was able to verify the exactitude of the assertion made by
Hippocrates, afterward luminously confirmed by different Italian anato-
mists, that the teeth begin to be formed during intra-uterine life. And
with reference to this he also relates the following fact:
The wife of a Protestant minister gave birth to a female child which
already had a fully developed tooth, a lower middle incisor, e(|ual in si/e
to that of a child of two years old, and which interfered with the sucking
by injuring the nipple of the mother's breast and the tongue of the child
itself. So it was necessary that it should be removed. But it was found
to be so firm that the surgeon sought in vain to extract it with a thread,
and was obliged to have recourse to the forceps.^
Observation XXXI of the third centuria relates a case of rhinoplasty.
In the year 1590, w^hen the Duke of Savoy made war on the inhabitants
of Geneva, a girl named Susanna N. fell into the hands of the soldiers,
who tried to deflower her; enraged at not succeeding in their intent, they
cut ofl^ her nose. Two years later the girl went to Lausanne, the residence
of Griffon, an eminent surgeon of that time, who performed the
J.
rhinoplastic operation on her in so splendid a manner that one would

' Cent, iv, obs. xxi, p. 302.
^ The most important of Fabricius Hildanus' works consists of six tenturuc (hundreds)
of remarkable cases, published by the author in successive epochs, and which were afterward
reunited under the title of Ohservationum et ciiratinnum chtrurgicarum centurta: sex.
* Cent. V, obs. xxvii, p. 406.
* G. F. Hildani, opera omnia, Epist. ad Rhettriuin. p. loio.
J.