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HISTORY OF DENTAL SURGERY 15

zeal, that she made mauy converts. About this time a tumult had been stirred tip in
the eity against the Christians and the mass of the people were enraged at her teaching,
and came with bitter complaints to her father. He gave her up to be judged by the
governor. They brought her before the idol temple and bade her worship the graven
image. It is reported that she made a sign of the cross, and there came forth from
the statue an evil spirit shrieking, "ApoUonia has driven me hence." This was more
than could be borne; the people thirsted for vengeance, so they tried by torture to
overcome her eonstanc}'. She was boiuid. and or.e by one her teeth were drawn out,
but still she did not flinch or fear, and on her refusal to accede to the demands of
her persecutors and renounce her faith, she was brutally clubbed about the head
and face, and subsequently suffered death by fire.
For a period of nearly fifteen hundred years her intercession has been sought
for relief from all pain incident to dental diseases, and her relics have been and are
regarded as possessing great efficacy in the cure of the same. ~
Eeniains of her head and jaws, which were gathered from the fire in which she
was thrown, are said to be preserved in various churches. In Eome, in Naples, in
Antwerp, Brussels and Cologne portions of the bones or teeth are cherished. There is
also a portion of these resting in some of the churches in the province of Quebec.
Chapels and altars in her honor are found in many churches. Her distinctive em-
blems are the pincers and tooth, the latter in some of the paintings is hung by a
gold chain around her neck as an ornament.
Another story is that St. Apollonia suffered martyrdom at an advanced age in
Alexandria during the Decian persecution, 249. She was seized, together with other
Christians, and received such violent blows upon her jaws that she lost all of her
teeth. The Pagans then lit the pyre, and demanded that she should curse Christ. She
hesitated for a moment and then suddenly leaped into the fire. During the middle
ages she was worshipped as the patroness against the toothache.
The progress of all science and art, including that of medicine and surgery,
was very seriously interrupted for a long period after the decline of Roniau
world influence in the fifth century.

THE SARACENS AND ARABIANS.

The great center of learning liad for ages existed at Alexandria in Egypt.
Here was located the greatest lihrary of the world. When the Saracens
invaded and conquered it, ahout the middle of the seventh century, they
almost entirely destroyed this library. Their religion led them to believe
that if these books taught nn more than the Koran, they were useless, and
if they transcended the Koran they were blasphemous and should not be
permitted to cumber or pollute the earth. Later, however, their chiefs
espoused a differing view with regard to the perpetuation of the recorded
wisdom of the jircceding ages, and about a hundred years after the destruction