Diemerbroek, a Dutchman, relates several cases of dental anomalies, as for example, of teeth being cut in the palate, and which injured the tongue. The author cites his own case, relating that having had a canine tooth extracted when well advanced in years, it was, nevertheless, succeeded by a new one. He relates, besides, that he had seen in Utrecht a woman, aged fifty-six years, who again cut two incisors after having lost the former ones two years previously. Apart from this, Diemerbroeck tells us nothing of interest or importance regarding the teeth, often repeating old ideas, the falseness of which had already been luminously demonstrated. For instance, he says that the permanent teeth are developed from the roots of the deciduous ones remaining in the alveoli; an unpardonable error for an anatomist of the seventeenth century, for which he was afterward taken to task by Duverney.[352]
Thomas Bartholin, whom we have already mentioned, speaks of a tooth which had made all the round of the alveolar border; that is to say, of a dental arch constituted by a single piece; and the Italian anatomist Bernardo Genga makes mention of an analogous case.[353] It is superfluous to add that these authors allowed themselves to be deceived by false appearances, owing especially to an abundant and uniform deposit of tartar on the surface of the teeth and in their interstices, which gave to the dental arch the appearance of one continuous piece.
Rinaldus Fredericus, in his erudite dissertation entitled De dentium statu naturali et præternaturali, spoke of the dental system with sufficient thoroughness, if we consider the epoch in which he wrote. He commences his work with a long chapter on the importance and dignity of the teeth (dignitas dentium). Among other things, he relates that formerly, in certain parts of India, the teeth were so highly valued as to be offered in sacrifice to the gods. He says, too, on the authority of certain authors, that the ancients were led to believe that the teeth served for the resurrection of the body, from the circumstance of their not showing signs of corruption when found in sarcophagi.
Discoursing of the genesis of the teeth, Fredericus says that “every tooth is at first enclosed within a follicle, that is, in a frail, skin-like membrane, in the same manner as the grain in the wheat-ear.” Taking this comparison as his point of departure,[354] he gives to dentition the name germination.
This author says that the teeth of the Ethiopians and of the Indians are generally whiter than those of the northern peoples, but that those of the Indians soon lose their primitive whiteness by reason of the widely diffused habit of chewing betel-nuts.
Fredericus refers to an experiment which, according to him, demonstrates the “sympathetic relations” between the teeth and the ear (whilst in reality it only proves the facility with which sounds may be transmitted through solid bodies). “If, by night,” says he, “one holds tightly between one’s teeth the end of a stick, stuck upright in the ground, one hears the footsteps of a person approaching from afar much more easily.”
Through the researches of three great men, Marcello Malpighi, Friedrich Ruysch, and Antoni van Leeuwenhoeck, an altogether new science arose in the seventeenth century, viz., histology, or the anatomy of the tissues, whose revelations contributed not a little to the development of modern odontology.
Marcello Malpighi (1628 to 1694), the celebrated Italian anatomist, was the initiator of microscopic observations on the tissues, and is, therefore, justly considered the founder of histology, within the range of which he made most important discoveries.[355]
Friederich Ruysch (1638 to 1731), professor at Amsterdam, rendered his name illustrious particularly by bringing to a high degree of perfection the processes of anatomical preparations and of embalming.[356]