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64 FIRST PERIOD—ANTIOUITT

In the book entitled Problems, many of which have reference to medical
matters, one is to be found to the following effect:
"Why do figs, when they are soft and sweet, produce damage to the
teeth ?" Perhaps, answers Aristotle, because the viscous softness of
the fig causes small particles of its pulp to adhere to the gums and in-
smuate themselves into the dental interstices, where they very easily
become the cause of putrefactive processes. But, he adds, it may also
be that harm is produced to the teeth by masticating the small hard
grains of this fruit.
In Aristotle's Mechanics, the following question relative to the extrac-
tion of the teeth is discussed:
"Why do doctors extract teeth more easily by adding the weight of
the odontagra (dental forceps) than by using the hand only.? Can it
be said that this occurs because the tooth escapes from the hand more
easily than from the forceps .? Ought not the irons to slip off the tooth
more easily than the fingers, whose tips being soft can be applied around
about the tooth much better.? The dental forceps," adds Aristotle, "is
formed by two levers, acting in contrary sense and having a single fulcrum
represented by the commissure of the instrument. By means of this
double lever it is much easier to move the tooth, but after having moved
it, it is easier to extract it with the hand than with the instrument."
From this passage of Aristotle one may draw various conclusions.
First of all, it appears that, at that time, the extraction of teeth was a
common enough operation carried out by doctors in general, or, at least,
V by specialists not indicated by any particular denomination but called
doctors (in Greek, taxpot) just the same as those who dealt with the
maladies of every other part of the body. If, therefore (which, however,
is very doubtful), there existed in Greece, as there certainly did in Egypt,
individuals who occupied themselves exclusively with the treatment of
the teeth, they cannot have formed a distinct class of professionals, but
merely a section of the medical class. Herodotus, too, as we have already
seen, does not say, speaking of Egypt, that there was a proper class of
dentists, but gives us to understand that the Egyptian doctors did not
occupy themselves indiscriminately with the treatment of all maladies,
for some dedicated themselves to curing the eyes, others to the treatment
of maladies of the head, others to those of the teeth, and so on.
From the Aristotelian passage on the extraction of teeth, just quoted,
it may be concluded that in those times the Hippocratic precept, that
only loose teeth were to be extracted, was not observed, for otherwise,
Aristotle could not have said that dental forceps are useful to loosen the
teeth, but that after this has been done the extraction of the tooth may be
more easily effected by means of the fingers than with the instrument.
This last assertion appears very strange. It demonstrates that either