As to worms in the teeth, they may be destroyed by the use of bitter substances!
In the case of a caries penetrating into the inner cavity of the tooth, to effect the cessation of pain, it is necessary to burn the nerve with the actual cautery, or with aqua fortis, or with oil of vitriol. If this be repeated several times, the tooth gradually falls to pieces.
After having enumerated all these remedies, the author speaks of the extraction of the teeth, and of all the precautions with which this must be carried out in order to avoid the various accidents which may result from the operations and may even, sometimes, become a cause of death.
When abundant hemorrhage follows the extraction of a tooth, this may often be made to cease by applying a small, very compact ball of linen into the alveolus and maintaining it there by pressure during one or two hours. Should this not suffice, one can combine with compression the use of astringent substances. Finally, as a last remedy, use may be made of the red-hot iron.
In the case of timid patients, who shrink from an instrumental operation, recourse may be had to eradicating remedies, the author being fully convinced of their efficacy. Indeed, one of these—helleboraster—is said to be so powerful that, when rubbed on the teeth, these fall out within the space of a few hours; for which reason it is absolutely necessary, in making use of it, to cover over the neighboring teeth with wax, so that the healthy ones may not also fall out, as happened, says the author, in the case of a poor peasant.
The internal use of mercury, and even the use of certain mercurial preparations used by women as cosmetics, is of damage to the teeth and imparts to them a blackish or dirty looking color.
Numerous remedies exist for cleaning the teeth, but according to Rivière the best way of cleaning them consists in rubbing them with a small stick immersed in sulphuric acid (spiritus sulphuris aut vitrioli) and afterward drying them with a piece of linen. This remedy not only cleans and renders the teeth white, but it preserves them also from caries! If the teeth are very dirty, the spirit of vitriol may be used pure; otherwise one mixes it with mel rosatum or with water.
The great enthusiasm shown by Rivière for the above-mentioned remedy does not, however, derive from a long experience, made by himself or by others, of its advantages, but is based principally on a fact referred to by Montanus, and which,[345] we will here recount, because, from it, one clearly perceives how credulously our forebears accepted general affirmations and formulated therapeutic precepts.
Montanus recounts in one of his writings, how, being in Rome in his early youth, he became acquainted with a woman of about twenty years of age, known by the name of Maria Greca (by the way the author speaks of her, one is led to suspect she was a courtesan); and how, having seen her again, thirty years later, and found her in pretty much the same conditions as formerly, he expressed his surprise at this; whereupon Maria Greca told him that she herself believed that she owed the conservation of her beauty to the habit, already of many years’ standing, of using one or two drops of oil of vitriol every morning, as a friction for the teeth and gums. In her youth she had had very bad teeth, but by reason of this cure they had become, and were at the time being, beautiful and perfectly firm; the gums also were in excellent condition; it seemed, therefore, to her that this conservation of health and freshness, in spite of her fifty years, depended precisely on the daily use, in the manner described, of oil of vitriol![346]
Rivière, besides, recommends tobacco ashes for cleaning the teeth, a counsel not yet given by any previous author. He also gives the formulæ for two dentifrice powders, the basis of which is alum; he calls attention to the great importance of taking assiduous care to keep the teeth clean, and advises that after each meal the residues of food be removed from the interstices of the teeth and the mouth well rinsed with wine.[347]