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26 FIRST PERIOD—ANTIQUITY

second book of Herodotus we find the following passage: ''The exer-
cise of medicine is regulated and divided amongst the Egyptians in
such a manner that special doctors are deputed to the curing of every
kind of infirmity; and no doctor would ever lend himself to the treatment
ot different maladies. Thus, Egypt is quite full of doctors: those for the
eyes; those for the head; some for the teeth; others for the belly; or for
occult maladies."^
Having here had occasion to refer to the History of Herodotus, we
will quote two passages of this famous work, which have a certain interest
for our subject;
"Whilst the tyrant Hippias, after having been driven out of Athens
(510 B.C.), was marching against Greece at the head of the Persian army
and had already arrived at Marathon, he happened one day to sneeze
and to cough in a more vehement manner than usual; and he being
already an old man, and his teeth all shaking, a violent fit of coughing
suddenly drove one of them out of his mouth, and it having fallen into
the dust, Hippias set to work, with great diligence, to search for it; but
the tooth not coming to light, he drew a long sigh, and then said, turning
to those who were standing bv: 'This land is not ours, neither shall we
ever be able to have it in our power; what clings to mv tooth is all of it
""
that will ever belong to me.'
In another part of the Historv, that is, in the ninth book, Herodotus
recounts as follows:
"When the corpses buried after the battle of Platea were already
despoiled of their flesh, a curious fact was seen; for the people of Platea
having collected the bones of those who had perished, there was found
amongst them a skull altogether devoid of commissures, and composed of
one single bone. A jaw was also found, the teeth of which, comprising
the molars, appeared to be made all of one piece, as though composed of
a single bone."
Relative to this last passage of Herodotus, we may remark, as does
Stark, that the total synostosis of the skull bones is certainly very rare,
but that, nevertheless, one has authentic examples of the same, not only
in ancient but also in relatively modern times, witness the famous skull
of Albrecht von Brandenburg, surnamed the German Achilles, who
died in i486, and was buried in the monastery of Heilbronn. As to
teeth united together and forming a single piece, no example exists save
in very ancient authors, for instance, in Valerius Maximus, who recounts
a similar marvellous fact of Prusia, King of Bithynia, and in Plutarch,
who attests to a similar fact in the person of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus.

' Herodoti Halicarnassei historia, 1570 fol. ^uterpe, page 53.
''
Herodoti Halicarnassei historia, lib. vi.