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HISTOEY OF DENTAL SURGERY 11

friction, bathing ;ind exercise, emetics, and bleeding, and "strove to make
himself as agreeable as possible to his patients."' He is said to have enjoyed the
friendship of Cicero and to have been a contemporary of Dioscorides, Cleopa-
tra's physician.
At about the beginning of the first century Cornelius Celsus, whom they
called tlie Latin Hippocrates, flourished in Rome. It is generally held that his
works contain a complete exposition of what was then known of the art or
science of medicine and surgery. He gives particular direction aliout the
extraction of the teeth and urges them to be well_shakeu and loosened before
attempting their _removal. The vulcella,^ employed by him for this^urposep
probably furnished the idea for the hawkbill forceps of modern days. He
recommended and practiced the scarifying of the gums, and the filling of
carious teeth with lead and other materials.
Celsus, in common with his predecessors, was averse to tooth extraction
liy means of instruments, and recommended the use of the actual cautery, hot
oil or caustic remedies, to effect their exfoliation. He employed gold wire for
ligating teetli tluit had become loosened and which it was desirable to retain.
He also prescribed dentifrices and lotions for the purpose of fastening
loosened teeth by astringent constriction of the gums.
Marcellus, who practiced in Rome after Celsus, equally discouraged tooth
extraction, even in severe toothache, and prescribed cauterizing with boiling oil,
also fomentations of opium or hyoscyamus. He mentions removing caries in
teetli with a scalpel and filling the cavity with a gum or like material.
Fastening teeth occupied tlie attention of the practitioners of those days
fully as much as their extraction. We must, therefore, infer that they suf-
fered greatly from what is now called pyorrhea, whicli was first described as
Riggs' disease, this American dentist having described and called specific at-
tention to it in the last half of the last century.
Galen, who w-as the great surgeon of Rome after the middle of the second
century, taught that the teeth are not entirely deprived of sensibility, as might
be inferred from the absence of pain when they are filled, having proved on
himself that the pain proceeds from the small nerves enclosed by the roots, and
that the substance of the teeth may easily become inflamed, as denoted by the
throbbing pain that is felt, the blackish color they acquire and the efficacy
of antiphlogistics in removing these complaints. As the loosening of the
teeth of aged people depends upon the parts surrounding the teeth, Galen
indicates no other remedy than the strengthening the gums. With much
8ee Fig. 1, Page 17.
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