A fourth kind is the “crow’s beak,” or “crow’s bill,” which is used for the extraction of roots.
Two other instruments are named in Italian “cagnoli,” for they imitate the strong bite of the dog (in Italian cane) and are used in cases where the pelican is not adapted.
A seventh instrument is called by the Latin term of terebra (drill or auger). It is used instead of a lever to separate the teeth from one another when they are too close to each other, and so render their extraction much easier.
The eighth instrument is a “trifid lever” (vectis trifidus), so called because it is furnished with three points.
The ninth and last kind of instruments are the dentiscalpia, slender, sharp, and oblong tools, with which the gums are separated from the teeth before extraction.
Fabricius also speaks of dental prosthesis, but very briefly. He says that artificial teeth are made of ivory or of bone (for example, from the tibia of the ox) and are fastened by gold wire. One has recourse to this means especially to correct the bad appearance and the defects in speech deriving from the loss of the front teeth.
This author also makes some allusion to palatal obturators,[324] but in very general terms, limiting himself to saying that when a perforation exists in the hard palate, it may be corrected by a piece of sponge or cotton, or with a plate of silver fixed in the palate, so as to close up the aperture (corrigitur spongia, vel gossypio, vel lamina argentea, quæ palato appendatur, ut foramen obstruat).
For epulides and parulides Fabricius advises the same methods of cure that had been recommended by Paul of Ægina.
In the case of flaccidity of the gums accompanied by looseness of the teeth, the treatment must consist, first of all, in superficial cauterization with the red-hot iron, after which the gums must be smeared with honey, the mouth washed with mulse, and lastly astringent powders must be used.