The best way of obtaining the cessation of a violent toothache without having recourse to extraction is, according to the author, cauterization of the antitragus, an operation which he carried out with a special cauterizing instrument, made to pass through a small tube, the better to localize and to limit the action of the red-hot iron. With regard to this means of cure already recommended by other authors, we may remark that, although it seems ridiculous at first sight, and although no one could be so senseless as to make use of it in our days, nevertheless, for the times of which we are writing, when the curing of toothache was in a great measure effected by indirect means, this remedy might well stand on a level with many others, and was not perhaps altogether inefficacious. It is a sufficiently well-known physiological fact that the application of a strong stimulus in one part of the body may diminish or suppress a painful sensation in another part of the organism. It is an equally well-known fact that it is in no way a matter of indifference, in producing this phenomenon, to what part the stimulus be applied, especially because of the great difference existing in the relations of the several parts of the body with the brain—the centre of sensation. It is, therefore, very possible that the cauterization of the antitragus may really have the effect of causing strong toothache to cease, at least temporarily.
Nuck used a variety of remedies to arrest dental hemorrhage, such as tinder, burnt linen, vitriol, sulphuric acid and the cauterizing iron.
As to the use of the file, far from rejecting it entirely, as does Martin, he holds it necessary in many cases for planing down points and sharp edges of broken teeth, as well as for removing, at least in a measure, the inconvenience and deformed appearance caused by irregular teeth. He says the file may be used without causing the slightest harm, if one takes care not to approach the inner cavity of the tooth too nearly, and above all not to penetrate right to it, which would give rise to intolerable pain. Such an accident, he adds, may happen much more easily when, instead of using the file, whole pieces of teeth are removed with the excising forceps.
This author acquaints us with a tooth powder, much used in his time, especially by Parisian ladies. The ingredients were powdered cuttle fish, coral powder, cream of tartar, Armenian bole, and powder of red roses.
At that time artificial teeth were generally made of ivory; Nuck, however, observes that it soon becomes yellow by the action of food and drink, and of the saliva itself. He therefore recommends, instead, the use of hippopotamus’ tusks, giving the preference to the whitest. According to Nuck, artificial teeth made of hippopotamus’ tusks would be capable of preserving their color even for seventy years. In the case of all the teeth of the lower jaw being wanting, the entire dental arch ought to be framed in with a single piece of ivory or tusk of hippopotamus.[382]
Carlo Musitano, a celebrated Neapolitan doctor (1635 to 1714). According to Carlo Musitano, the real cause of toothache consists in the irritant action of saline or acid particles on the extremely thin membrane that lines the alveoli or on the exquisitely sensitive nerves of the teeth. As he believes, these particles have an angular form, sometimes pointed or even hooked, and they reach the sensitive parts either directly from the outside, through the air, the food or drink (especially when the teeth are already decayed), or else through the blood and other humors, which often, by reason of their deteriorated quality, contain great quantities of such irritant particles.
Among the various influences which may be conducive to toothache, atmospheric conditions ought also to be included; thus, says the author, the inhabitants of the Baltic littorals, and other northern peoples, are very subject to toothache, for the reason that in those regions the air contains, in abundance, saline particles of various kinds which penetrate into the organism by the act of respiration. It is said, on the contrary, that in Egypt, where the air is remarkably mild, the teeth are not subject either to pain or to decay.
Musitano, too, believes in worms in the teeth, but does not admit, as preceding authors had done, that they generate spontaneously. He holds instead that they result from the eggs of flies and other insects, which, together with food, are introduced into the carious cavities and there develop by the heat of the mouth.
The treatment of toothache ought to differ according to its causes. If the pain be owing to acidity, one uses medicines adapted for tempering the acids; if it be owing to the action of saline substances, one has recourse to remedies which dissolve them; if to worms, to such remedies as destroy them, and so on. Purgatives and bleeding ought, however, never to be used as remedies against toothache; for, far from doing good, they often do harm. As to the other torments usually inflicted on poor sufferers, they are the punishment of their sins, for God often gives the unrighteous into the hands of doctors! (This language will perhaps appear less strange when the reader comes to know that Carlo Musitano was at one and the same time priest and physician!)