Page 340 - My FlipBook

318 THIRD PERIOD—MODERN TIMES

Frere Come, a celebrated French surgeon, also contributed to the
perfecting of this instrument/
In 1771-72, Fr. L. Weyland and Henkel recorded some very impor-
tant cases of diseases of Highmore's antrum.^
W. Bromfield, in a collection of surgical observations and cases pub-
lished in London in the year 1773, also speaks of affections of the maxillary
sinus. He says that he has had opportunity of persuading himself that
the purulent gatherings of this cavity not unfrequently discharge spon-
taneously during the night, finding their exit through the natural orifice
of the antrum, when the body is in the horizontal position.''
- John Hunter, the celebrated surgeon, must be named among the
most illustrious champions of odontology in England. He was born
February 13, 1728. His first instructor in medical studies was his brother,
William Hunter, a scientist of great merit, whose school of anatomy in
London was attended by numerous students from all parts of the British
Kingdom. Under so excellent a guide John Hunter made rapid progress,
and in less than twenty years became the most famous physiologist and
professor of surgery of that day. He was surgeon-general to the English
army.
His Natural History of the Hiunan Teeth (London, 1 771) and his
Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Teeth (London, 1778) initiated
in England a new epoch for the dental art, which, abandoning its blind
empiricism, began to take its stand on the basis of rigorous scientific
observation.
But although Hunter's merits were great with respect to the scientific
development of odontology, we must remember that he was a general
surgeon, and not a dentist, and that precisely for this reason he had not,
neither could he have, other than a restricted personal experience relative
to the treatment of dental diseases. This explains why the anatomical
and physiological part of Hunter's works on the teeth is so far superior
to the part concerning practical treatment.
Indeed, in the field of practice, this author often falls into grave con-
tradictions, and is frequently hesitating and uncertain on important points
of dental therapeutics.
Hunter gives a very long and detailed description of all the parts con-
stituting the oral cavity and the masticatory apparatus. He sought to
establish a scientific nomenclature for the teeth, and in fact the denomina-
tions of ciispidati for the canine teeth and of bicuspids or hicuspidati
for the small molars originated with him. Hunter says that the enamel
of the teeth is a fibrous structure, and that its fibers depart from the body

' Spixnf>:cl, vol. ' Sprengel, p. 350.
ii, p. 348.
^ Bromfield, Cliiriirgical observations and casts, l^ondon, 1773.