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HISTUEY OF DENTAL SUEGEEY : 7

vivisections by ]icntiittin,i; comlomned criiiiinals to Ijc made use of foi- such
purposes.
Tliese teachers discouraged tlie extraction of teeth unless they were so
loose as to be easily removed with leaden forceps. Herophilus reported several
—
cases of death resulting from tooth extraction presumably in cases where the
leaden forceps were not available.
Artiticial sul^stitutes for teeth were known and worn in the early Eomaii
days. It has been claimed that teeth of gold were worn to replace lost
natural teeth, Init Romans of good taste greatly preferred substitutes that
more nearly resembled tlie natural teeth. To tliis end they employed ivory or
bone.
A\'hile Hippocrates and the writers of his time give no reference to dental
prosthesis, Roman poetry contains suggestions that give indisputable evidence
that artificial substitutes were worn by at least tlie ladies of the ''upper
tendom." In the first book of Martial occur these lines
"If teeth like thine, lady, we would display,
Witli purchased bone and horn of India
Our mouths must be arrayed."

In his fiftli bonk he uses tliis expression:
"Thais has teeth so lilack; Lecania white;
(Seek you the cause? Lecania's teeth are bought,
AVhili' Thais wears her own.
Martial, it must be remembered, was born in Spain in 43 A. D., and
came to Rome in 66. He renuiiued there until 100, after which he returned to
his native town and died tliere about 104 A. D. His epigrammatic poems were
written during the reigns of the Emperors Nero to Trajan, and the essential
customs prevailing in Rome during this epoch of thirty-live j'ears is undoubt-
edly truthfully depicted in his writings.
In an historical review of dental surgery taken from Kurt Sprengel's
''Geschichte der Medicin," translated from the French of A. T. L. Jourdain,
W'ith critical and exjilanatory notes by A. Hockley, it is stated that the
dentists of Egypt were paid regular salaries by the government from its
treasury. While the government paid salaries to tlie physicians for the teeth,
we are told that it was not illegal for them to receive fees for advice or at-
tendance. They had to show that they had a knowledge of the principles
governing the practice of this specialty gained from the experience of their