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HISTORY OF DENTAL SURGEEY 31

"Tliey were made very hard that they might not weare so soone or be liroken
in chawing or breaking of liard things, for they are not lined eyther with
fatte or gristles as other ioynts are to hinder attrition. The teeth, therefore,
do breake bones, resist the edge of steel ; neyther can they easily as other parts
of the body be burnt with fire. Hippocrates, in his booke "De Carnibiis,"'
ascribeth the cause of their liardnesse to the quality of the matter out of which
they are ingendered, for hee writeth that out of the bones of the head and the
iawas there is an increase of a glutinous matter. In that glutinous matter the
fatty part falleth downe into the sockets of the gums where it is dried and
burnt with the heate, and so the teeth are made harder than other bones be-
cause there is no cold remaining in them.''
Leeuwenhohk, in 16T8, discovered and described the tubular structure of
the dentin. He had one of his own teeth drawn and, in conjunction with
several gentlemen, examined it by the means of strong glasses. They agreed
that they plainly saw the whole tooth was made up of very small, straight and
transparent pipes. Six or seven hundred of these pipes put together, he be-
lieved, did not exceed the thickness of one hair of a man's beard. Thesa
statements were so new and beyond the conception of all others that no
particular attention was paid to them, but in the light of present knowledge
this early discoverer was certainly entitled to credit for his painstaking,
original investigation and discovery.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY—AUOUSTl BUDDEI.'

France, in ITOO, was the first country to recognize the importance of den-
tistry as a distinct profession, by requiring prospective practitioners in this
specialty to submit to an examination.
Berdmore, in 1723, gave considerable attention to improvements in the
construction of artificial teeth and their adaptation. Fauchard, in 1738, pub-
lished the results of his forty years' experience as a dentist. He was among
the first to remedy the defects of cleft palates by means of mechanical obtura-
tors. Brunon wrote an accurate description of many of the diseases of the
teeth in 1741, and proved that the prejudice against the extraction of the teeth,
and particularly in pregnancy, was not to be encouraged.
Bourdet, in 1757, was credited as having been among the first to undertake
1 Royal court councilor and body physician, director of the College of Medicine,
of the Royal Society of Sciences; professor of anatomy and physics and the Medico
Surgical College, and member of the Imperial Roman Academy.