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6 HISTOKY OF DENTAL SUEGEKY

dates him, as the contents of Greek, Egyptian and other tombs would lead us to
believe.
Hippocrates deserves the admiration of all progressive men. Living in au
age of superstition, in which the s-.ipernatural governed science and the
healing art, he had the ability to discover natural causes and physical agencies,
and the courage to proclaim them in spite of the opposition of long-rooted prej-
udice. His example is well worthy of the emulation of investigators and dis-
coverers of any age.
Hippocrates mentions nojjrostheli^jrocedure in dentistry. This, however,
does not necessarily prove that there was no prosthetic dentistry practiced in
his time, or that it was unknown to him. The conclusion is perhaps justified
that he, like the physicians and medical writers of later years, did not give
much attention to prosthesis in any department of the healing art. They left
the consideration of prosthetic appliances to specialists who devoted them-
selves to this practice as mechanics, whose work may not have been worthy
their mention. We are told by Dr. Guerini that in a tomb of a Greek village
near Thebes a dental appliance was found which dates back from 300 or
400 years B. C, which was "composed of a very small bar of very pure gold of
about one half centimeter in length, folded in siich a way as to form an
elliptical ring, which, when applied around the four incisors, kept them in
a fi.xed position, acting like a splint." This is only a little later than the
period in which Hippocrates lived. So thorough a student and observer
could not have been ignorant of the use of artificial substitutes, although their
construction by him may have been beneatii his dignity, and contrary to the
usage of the age.
The dentifrices compounded by liim would not at the present day ap-
pear very scientific, and yet when deprived of their mysticism and reduced to
their reality chemically, they are not so ridiculous as they appear. "Take the
head of a hare, and three mice, two of these having the entrails removed;
incinerate them and reduce to ashes: then mix with equal weight of powdered
marble," is one of these prescriptions.

Heraclitus of Tarentum, Erasistratus and Herophilus operated upon
the teeth. The last two. who were professional descendants of Hippocrates,
established a medical school in Alexandria, about 300 B. C. It came to be
of threat renown. We are told that by them, in this school, the dissection
of the human body was first practiced. The Ptolemys patronized this school
and became so much interested in anatomical science as to encourage human