All the principal journals of the time (Journal des Savants, Journal de Trévoux, Journal de Verdun, Mercure de France, etc.) published extracts from the book and eulogized the author, who had even the high satisfaction of receiving an honorable mention from the Royal Academy of Surgery, in the public sitting held in 1743.
Bunon, therefore, was now famous, and had, besides, gained wealthy clients, as we see from the perusal of his observations, where the best names in France are to be met with, put in evidence by him without the least thought of professional secrecy. He could now enjoy his well-merited successes, in accordance with the thought expressed by him in one of his books: “All those who labor for the progress of an art have legitimate right to the honor and to all the recompenses to which success is entitled.”[544]
The study of Bunon’s work proves, in fact, that he had good right to be proud of having written it. The mere perusal of it, however, does not suffice to enable the reader to judge of its merits, for to do this properly, it is necessary to study at the same time his other book, published in 1746, entitled Experiences and demonstrations made at the Hospital of Salpêtrière and at St. Côme, before the Royal Academy of Surgery, serving as continuation and proof to the Essay on the maladies of the teeth.[545] The essay is, in fact, a small 12mo book of 212 pages, written in a concise style, and, strange to say, most concise in the most important points.
Many facts of great moment are given under the form of rapid indications, or of assertions without proof; thus their importance is apt to pass completely unobserved by those who do not take the trouble of studying this work thoroughly and with the help of the explanations, illustrations, and comments contained in the second book we have referred to.
M. A. Barden, of the École Odontotechnique of Paris, was the first to undertake a serious and conscientious study of Bunon’s works. By so doing he has thrown full light on the author’s great merits, and brought forward the high scientific importance of his works.
One of the important questions studied by Bunon concerns the hygiene to be observed in order to obtain the development of a good dentition. On this question he rightly establishes the principle that hygiene and dental prophylaxis should begin from the period of the formation of the milk teeth. He works out this principle with rigorous logic, and finishes by tracing the hygiene of the mother during pregnancy, of the woman (be she mother or nurse) during the nursing period, and of the nursling as well.
As to the accidents of first dentition, Bunon sets forth a highly scientific opinion, fully coinciding with the ideas of modern writers, that is, that dentition is not the sole cause, nor even the principal cause, of such accidents, but simply a coöperating cause. He made the observation that in healthy infants, children of healthy parents and nursed by healthy women, the time of teething is gotten over without difficulty, while serious accidents occur frequently in weak and sickly children not brought up and nourished according to hygienic principles, or born, as not often happens, with special hereditary predispositions.
One of Bunon’s merits is that of having attributed to the first teeth all the importance they really have, and of having insisted on the necessity of attentively curing their maladies. He also drew attention to the dangers that may result from the eventual persistence of the first teeth at the epoch of the second dentition, or from the persistence of their roots after the destruction of the crown by caries. These roots, he says, by their contact with the neighboring permanent teeth may infect them, and cause them to decay.
Bunon’s researches into the development of the teeth enabled him to describe precisely the position that the various teeth of the second dentition occupy in the jaw with regard to the milk teeth, before these are shed.