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334 THIRD PERIOD-MODERN TIMES

the injections through the nasal orifice of the maxillary sinus are partly
impracticable, and partly of no utility.
It always does more harm than good to file or to scrape the decayed
part of a tooth, without stopping it afterward, as by thus doing, says the
author, one only renders it still more liable to the access and the action of
harmful external influences. In preparing the cavity for stopping, the
bottom of it should be more ample than its external aperture, that the
filling may remain firm.
For extracting molars, he makes use either of the pelican or of the
key; for the incisors and the canines, of the forceps; and for roots, of the
goat's foot.
Callisen treats incipient idiopathic epulis by destroying it through
cauterization, after having covered the teeth with wax; if the epulis
be large and more or less hard, he removes it with the bistoury; as to
symptomatic epulis, he holds the removal of the original cause to be the
best mode of treatment.
This author declares himself decidedly in favor of replantation and
transplantation, expressing the idea that these methods are always to be
preferred to the application of artificial teeth. He maintains that after a
tooth has been replanted, and its consolidation has taken place, there is
no possibility of any further pain, the nerve being broken. The author
relates a brilliant cure which he carried out upon a lieutenant, who,
during the siege of Copenhagen, had received a blow that had sent
all his front teeth into his mouth. Callisen immediately put them all
back in their places with such ability that they became perfectly firm
again. With reference to transplantation, he only believes in its being
possible for teeth with a single root.
In works published toward 1790, Lentin and Conradi, devoted their
particular attention to the morbid conditions that produce looseness and
spontaneous falling of the teeth. For the treatment of these conditions
Conradi recommended general and local remedies. The general remedies
were directed to the suppressing of acridness in the blood, which he con-
sidered to be an etiological element of primary importance. As to the
local remedies, they ought specially to consist in keeping the teeth clean
by the use of a toothbrush, in painting the gums with tincture of catechu
and myrrh, and in rinsing the mouth frequently with a decoction of
cinchona or of willow bark. Against toothache caused by caries, he par-
ticularly advises essence of cloves, introduced into the carious cavity on
a piece of cotton-wool.^
Friedrich Hirsch was much less disposed than were many of the
preceding writers to incision of the gums in cases of difficult dentition.

' SprciifTfl, pp. 372, 373.