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THE GREEKS 05

the instruments then m use were very imperfect, or that Aristotle, although
the son of a doctor and himself possessed of vast medical knowledge,
had absolutely no experience as to the extraction of teeth; and, therefore,
speaking theoretically, and without any practical basis, he ran into error,
as even the greatest men are apt to do when drawing conclusions from
purely theoretical reasonings.
From Aristotle to Galen, that is, for the space of five centuries, the
anatomy of the dental system, so far as may be deduced from the writings
preserved to us, made no sensible progress. But in respect to this, one
must take into consideration some historical facts of capital impor-
tance. The school of medicine of Alexandria, which arose about three
centuries before Christ, numbered among its most brilliant luminaries
the celebrated doctors Herophilus and Erasistratus, who were the initia-
tors of the dissection of human corpses,' thus giving a great impulse
to anatomical research. It is, therefore, hardly admissible that these
two great anatomists, who studied with profound attention even the most
complicated internal organs, should have neglected the anatomy of the
teeth. Unfortunateh', however, not all the results of their researches
have come down to us; nor is this to be wondered at, especially if we
reflect on the large number of precious works entireh lost by the destruc-
tion of the celebrated library of Alexandria, a.d. 642.
When we come to speak of Archigenes, we shall see how he, in certain
cases, advised trepanning the teeth. This would lead to the belief that
in his times, viz., tow^ard the end of the first centur\ after Christ, the exist-
ence of the central cavity of the tooth was not ignored, and that, there-
fore, the structure of these organs had already been the object of study.
As to diseases of the teeth and their treatment, there is no doubt that
Herophilus and Erasistratus must have occupied themselves with these
subjects; and the same may be asserted of Heraclides of Tarentum, a
celebrated doctor w4io lived in the third century before the Christian era.
Indeed, we read in Coelius Aurelianus,- that the record had come down
through the w^orks of Herophilus and Heraclides of Tarentum, of persons
having died by the extraction of a tooth.-' The same writer also alludes to
a passage of Erasistratus, relating to the odontagogon already mentioned,
which was exhibited in the temple of Apollo, and to the practical signifi-

' According to the testimony of Celsus, a very serious author and in every way worthy of
behef, Herophilus and Erasistratus dissected not only corpses, but also living men, namely,
malefactors consigned to them by the kings of Egypt, in order that they might make re-
searches into the normal conditions of the organs during life, and their mode of functioning.
See Cornel. Cels., De re medica, lib. i, Preface.
^ Coelii Aureliani de morbis acutis et chronicis, lib. viii, Amstehedami, 1755, Pars ii, lib.
ii, cap. iv, De dolore dentium.
^ Herophilus et Heraclides Tarentinus mori quosdam detractione dentis memoraverunt.
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