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THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 337

incision of the gums. He considered this practice as one to lie ahsolutelv
rejected, supporting his opinion on tlie consideration that dentition,
being an altogether physiological process, which, moreover, takes place
in parts relativeh of but little importance, never can give rise of itself
alone to serious accidents. Besides this, he sa\s, it is ver\' difficult to
sa\- which tooth precisely is about to erupt and at what point. The
incisions would, therefore, have to be made b\' chance, w hich would otten
render the morbid condition still more serious.
K. A. Blumenthal endeavored to confute Wichmann's opinions,
with but little success; for, indeed, the same opinions, expressed later
by H. Sternberg in a more detailed manner and with ampler views
J.
of the subject, met with ever-increasing approval. Thenceforth, the
practice of gingival incisions in cases of difficult dentition fell more
and more into discredit.^
Robert Bunon,- the French dentist, is one of the most illustrious per-
sonalities to be met with in the history of our profession. He was born
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and devoted himself betimes to
the dental art, gathering instruction therein partly from different dentists
and partly from the few odontological books he was able to find. In this
manner he learned pretty much all that was known at that time b\- dentists
in general. He then decided to travel, in order to acquire further knowl-
edge and experience. He practised especially in the north of France and
in what is now the state of Belgium; at Antwerp, Brussels, Givet, Mau-
beuge, Cambrai. In his ardent thirst for knowledge, when he happened
to pass through a town where some dentist of note resided, he never
neglected to call on him, thus acquiring fresh information and per-
fecting himself as well in the practical exercise of his profession. At
the same time, his desire to learn all that was new concerning dental art
and science was so intense that he had translations made of the medical
and surgical works of Latin, Italian, German, and English authors.
However, all this reading, although it enlarged his general knowledge,
taught him nothing, or almost nothing, about those subjects that interested
him above all the others. His practical experiences, meanwhile, brought
a great number of patients to his notice, and, being by nature a very
acute observer, he was able to establish the existence of many facts up
to then unknown. At this time he commenced his studies on dental
erosion, on the development of the teeth, and on the prophylaxis of dental
"
maladies, his favorite subject. I felt," he writes, " that the necessity
of having recourse day by da\- to the extraction of teeth resulted from

' Sprengel, pp. 376, 377.
- For all that regards Bunon's life and writings we have availed ourselves of the excellent
historical work of A. Harden, "Un precurseur: Bunon," a communication presented to the
Geneva Session of the International Dental Federation (August, 1906).