[221] Lib. ii, cap. xxxv, p. 197.
[222] Lib. iii, cap. iv, p. 545.
[223] [In connection with the practice of applying medicines to the teeth or upon the gums, with the object of rendering the operation of tooth extraction less difficult, the use of arsenical compounds as an ingredient of these topical applications is of peculiar interest. In an Italian translation of the writings of Johannes Mesue, published at Venice in 1521, the following interesting reference to the use of arsenic appears:
“The son of Zachariah Arazi compounds a medicine to assist the extraction of the teeth. ℞—Pyrethrum, colquintida root and the bark of the mulberry root, the seed and leaves of almezeron, huruc, and yellow arsenic, milk of alscebram or pieces of it, ground very thoroughly with vinegar; then pour some of it over bdellium and halasce, of each, equal parts, dry and dissolve in strong vinegar and make trochisi of it, and with them anoint the roots of the tooth from hour to hour; this facilitates the extraction of it.
“There is also another medicine with which one fills the decayed tooth and breaks it: ℞—Seeds of almezeron and milk of alscebram compounded with liquid pitch, and fill with it the decayed tooth. Another one: ℞—Bauras, bark of the willow, of each, one part; yellow arsenic, two parts; compound with honey and place it upon and around the tooth and immediately extract it.
“The fat of the green frog which lives upon the trees breaks teeth which are anointed with it the same as when you anoint them with milk of alscebram or titimallo, and similarly also the milk of celso with yellow arsenic.”
In this connection it is also interesting to note that the ancient Arabian medical writers referred to the red sulphide of arsenic or realgar as sandarach. The term Sandarach was clearly used by these writers to designate two different medicaments—one the gum-vernix, exudate of the Juniper tree, and which we now know as Sandarach gum. They also apply the term to red arsenic, as above stated. Avicenna clearly distinguishes between the two kinds of Sandarach, and says with regard to the gum-vernix or Juniper Sandarach that it is the best of all known remedies for toothache. While, as shown by Dr. Guerini, many of the medicaments used as topical applications to facilitate the extraction of teeth were wholly without any possible effect of that character, it cannot be doubted that the application of arsenical preparations, such as those referred to by Mesue, could not fail to set up an arsenical necrosis about the roots of the tooth, rendering it loose and easy of removal, but necessarily with the disadvantage of producing a dangerously extensive necrosis of the tissues.
Mesue Vulgar.—Impresso in Venitia per Cesaro Arrivabeno Venitiano a di vinti octubrio, mille cinquecento e vintiuno.
Delle Medicini Particulare, Libro Quarto, Capitolo XLI.—E. C. K.]
[224] Joannis Mesue opera, Venetiis, 1562.