“If in your teeth you hap to be tormented,
By meane some little wormes therein do breed,
Which pain (if heed be tane) may be prevented,
Be keeping cleane your teeth, when as you feede;
Burne Francomsence (a gum not evil sented),
Put Henbane unto this, and Onyon seed,
And with a tunnel to the tooth that’s hollow,
Convey the smoke thereof, and ease shall follow.”[983]
Every druggist even at the present day sells henbane seed for the same purpose; it is used by sprinkling it on hot cinders. The heat causes the seed to sprout, and an appearance similar to a maggot is produced, which is ignorantly supposed by the purchaser of the drug to have dropped from the tooth to which the smoke is applied. Very strangely this belief that toothache is caused by a worm is found all over the world.[984]
That dental caries is actually caused by an organism (the Leptothrix buccalis), which is found in teeth slime, and the threads of which penetrate the tissue of the teeth after the enamel has been eaten away by acids generated by the fermentation of the food, is not of course known to peasants and ignorant persons; they seem, however, to have in this instance anticipated a discovery in bacteriology.