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HISTOEY OF DENTAL SUEGERY 33

operations and everything connected therewith. In these we find described
trepanning, eye and ear diseases, lithotomy, rupture, accouchment, fistula,
amputations, etc., and the instruments and bandages employed. With all thi-j
it is surprising that not any one had been willing to busy himself especially
with the teeth and their diseases, as the mouth and the teeth enclosed within
are as clean and sweet as the other parts of the human body upon which
operations are performed.
"Presumably the cause or reason for this may be found in the fact
that extraction and cleaning of the teeth are considered indecorous. While
operations for cataract, hairlip and cancer were rightfully taken away from
fraudulent charlatans and embodied in honest surgery, it was not to be thougiit
of to do the same with the diseases of the mouth and teeth.
"If some be found who look upon the diseases of the teeth as of little
importance and who, therefore, do not consider it worth their while to direct
their care or attention particularly upon them, they thereby establish especial
proof of their poor knowledge of anatomy and pathology of these parts.
"This alone is to be remembered, that where a portion of our body is in-
clined to pain, the same may be traced to the teeth so long as they remain
in their alveoli and are covered by their membrane. Although the teeth are
the hnrdest part of our body, and therefore little subject to treatment, they
must in certain cases be burned (cauterized), filled, filed, tied together and
finally extracted, through the skillful hand of the surgeon.
"While to our author belongs the honor of having with praisewortiiy in-
dustry, excellent wisdom and useful application, presented to our view an
ordinary compendium of the anatomical description, diseases and remedies of
the mouth and teeth; instruments and entire apparatus necessary thereto,
which nobody had done before him, there have not been wanting in olden or
newer times writers who now and then have treated somewhat upon the teeth.
"In this class of writers belong the disputations upon the teetli bv Thomas
Erasti and Melchiores Sebizii, the first published in Zuricli, in 1595, and
the other in Strassburg, in 1G45. Others, on the other hand, have written
upon dental diseases in a liaphazard and incomplete way,'' Buddei continues.
"The author takes pains to apply the discoveries of the later anatomists
i)i
tlie description of the origin, development, structure, position and connection
of the teeth in order to give his readers a good conception of tlie things which
he seeks -consecutively to lay before them. He rejects with great justice
coarse dentifrices which cause 7nore injury to the teeth than good."
This German translator further commends Fauchard, and dentists gener-