Page 244 - My FlipBook

228 THIRD PERIOD—MODERN TIMES

antihelix! Against flaccidity of the gums and loosening ot the teeth he
also used cauterization, disapproving the use of astringent substances,
as these cannot get so far as the roots of the affected teeth. Severino
boasts of having cured by cauterization at least two hundred cases of
dental diseases.
Lazare Riviere (1589 to 1655), a professor at the University of
Montpelier, also known by his latinized name of Lazarus Riverius,
treats of dental affections and their cure, in various parts of his works,
considering them, however, almost exclusively from a medical point of
view.
He speaks first of all of the different causes of odontalgia, and, among
these, does not omit to mention worms. These, he says, may be generated
in the carious cavities, owing to the putrefaction of substances retained
in their interior. Whenever odontalgia is caused by worms, the pain,
says Riviere, is not continuous, but ceases and returns at brief intervals;
besides, the sufferer perceives at times the movement of the worm m-
side the tooth!
What one reads in the works of this author as to remedies to be used
for odontalgia clearly demonstrates how irrationally dental diseases were
treated in the seventeenth century and what tortures were inflicted on the
patients. In many cases, and especially when the pain was held to be occa-
sioned by "hot humors," the treatment was begun by bleeding in the arm.
The following day an aperient was administered. Afterward, it the pain
still persisted, the sufferer was cupped in the region of the scapulae or of
the spine, blisters were applied to the nape of the neck or behind the ears,
resinous plasters to the temples; all this without taking into account the
remedies which were introduced into the ears, or the various medications
or operations performed on the aching part itself, and man)' other things
besides. In fact, in order to cure a toothache, the whole body of the
sufferer was seized upon and put to torture, and in the majority of cases
they assuredly finished by extracting the diseased tooth! When we reflect
on the extraordinary frequency of dental disorders we cannot do less
than recognize that the dentists, by the radical change effected in the
methods of treatment, have diminished in no small degree the suffer-
ings of humanity!
According to Riviere, the small veins (sic) that nourish the teeth pass
through the ear (!); and this would explain how the cessation of a tooth-
ache may be obtained by the introduction of certain remedies into the
meatus auditorius externus. Relief may be obtained, for instance, by
dropping oil of bitter almonds into the ear on the side affected by the pain,
or b\' allowing the vapor of hot vinegar, in which penny royal or origanum
has been boiled, to penetrate into it. Others, adds the author, pour a
little pure vinegar into the ear, which is especially efficacious against