A very interesting case, inasmuch as it demonstrated the damage and peril which may result from certain absurd means of cure, was reported to this author by Claudio Deodato, physician to the Prince-Bishop of Basle. The case was that of a patient who, after having tried in vain a great number of remedies for a stubborn toothache, finally had recourse to the use of aqua fortis; but this substance, which in those days was in frequent use for dental caries and for toothache, produced most deleterious effects in the patient, that is to say, the loss of almost all his teeth, necrosis of the inferior jaw, with fistulous sinuses and ulceration of the neck, abundant sanious discharge, fever, a cachectic condition, incipient necrosis of the upper jaw, etc.[340] Fabricius Hildanus, consulted by Claudio Deodato about this most serious case, proposed both a local and a general treatment, the result of which is, however, not mentioned in his book.
In the fifth “centuria of medical and surgical observations and cures”[341] we find a case of oral surgery, to which it is worth while briefly to refer here. It relates to an epulis situated next to the upper canine of the left side. The tumor, already of ancient date, had at this time reached the size of a walnut, was very hard, livid in color, irregular in form, and adhered somewhat to the upper lip; according to the author, it was of a cancerous nature. After the usual preparative measures, Fabricius Hildanus proceeded to the ablation of the tumor, and to this end he first pierced it with a curved needle and strong thread, in order to get a good hold on it, and he then removed it entirely down to the bone, by means of a curved bistoury.[342]
Fabricius Hildanus, having dissected several abortive fetuses of under four months, was able to verify the exactitude of the assertion made by Hippocrates, afterward luminously confirmed by different Italian anatomists, that the teeth begin to be formed during intra-uterine life. And with reference to this he also relates the following fact:
The wife of a Protestant minister gave birth to a female child which already had a fully developed tooth, a lower middle incisor, equal in size to that of a child of two years old, and which interfered with the sucking by injuring the nipple of the mother’s breast and the tongue of the child itself. So it was necessary that it should be removed. But it was found to be so firm that the surgeon sought in vain to extract it with a thread, and was obliged to have recourse to the forceps.[343]
Observation XXXI of the third centuria relates a case of rhinoplasty. In the year 1590, when the Duke of Savoy made war on the inhabitants of Geneva, a girl named Susanna N. fell into the hands of the soldiers, who tried to deflower her; enraged at not succeeding in their intent, they cut off her nose. Two years later the girl went to Lausanne, the residence of J. Griffon, an eminent surgeon of that time, who performed the rhinoplastic operation on her in so splendid a manner that one would have taken the new nose for a natural one, not only from its normal appearance, but also because the scar was hardly visible. Fabricius Hildanus, having had occasion to see and examine the patient several times, even up to twenty-one years after the operation, was able to testify to the perfect condition of the nose; in the extreme cold of the winter, however, it was apt to become livid at the point. He does not describe the operative process followed by Griffon, but merely says that the first inventor of this operation was Gaspare Tagliacozzi, of the University of Bologna, and that Griffon had undertaken the reproduction of the same from his own conception of it, based on the information imparted to him in conversation, by an Italian who had been operated upon by Tagliacozzi.
Johann Schultes (1595 to 1645), a physician in Ulm, was the author of a very important work entitled Armamentarium chirurgicum, in which are given plates and descriptions of almost all the surgical instruments that had been in use up to that date. As to the part relating to dental and oral surgery, we find the following instruments named in this work:
1. Several kinds of pelicans; an instrument which was so called from its resemblance to the beak of the bird of the same name, and used for extracting the molar teeth.
2. The common dental forceps, then named cagnolo by the Italians, because of the supposed likeness to a dog’s muzzle.
3. The crow’s beak forceps (rostrum corvinum), designed for the extraction of dental roots, and, therefore, corresponding to the rhizagra of Celsus.
4. Two special dental forceps, or dentiduces, for the removal of teeth which could not be extracted either with the pelican or with the common dental forceps.