[325] Cap. xxx, de gingivarum chirurgia, p. 450.
[326] Joannis Heurnii Ultrajectini de morbis oculorum, aurum, nasi, dentium et oris, liber Raphelengii, 1602, cap. xi, de dentium et oris passionibus, p. 79.
[327] De aureo dente maxillari pueri Silesii, Lipsiæ, 1595.
[328] Martini Rulandi, Nova et in omni memoria inaudita historia de aureo dente, Francofurti, 1595.
[329] Liddelius, Tractatus de dente aureo pueri Silesiani, Hamburg, 1626.
[330] [In the introductory portion of Liddell’s work on the “Golden Tooth” is published a number of letters bearing on the case, among others one which gives rather a circumstantial account of the imposture, and of which the following is a translation:
“Herr Balthazer Caminæus sends Greeting:
“For your letter, most kind Herr Doctor Caselius, in which you explicitly desired me to thank (my) colleagues for their good wishes, ‘wedding wishes,’ and to inform you as to the ‘Golden Tooth,’ I have long been in debt to you—not that I intended to leave your letter unanswered, but because no messengers presented themselves. Now that I have found one, I announce that I have obeyed your commands. As for the ‘Golden Tooth,’ I ought not to hide from you that we have more than once marvelled at your shrewdness, in that you are so anxious to ascribe the devices of wickedness and the tricks (fakes) of cunning to Nature. For it was no portent, only a deception and pure cheat, so that unless some Lemnian (Prometheus or Vulcan) should come to their aid, these acute authors will, nay, already are, a by-word to those who are more cautious and not so prone to believe. For the ‘Golden Toothed’ boy, according to the account brought thither by many persons, both by letter and oral report, some of whom had themselves seen this wonder, hailed from a village near Schwidnitz in Silesia, and had been so trained by his swindling father or master, that, at his will, whenever in any assembly of men, some very simple and illiterate persons desired to see the tooth and had paid the fee, for the rascals made great gains, he would open his mouth wide and allow himself to be touched. But if educated men and those who seemed likely to make more careful scrutiny and experiment on any point, presented themselves, he contorted his countenance, remained silent, and simulated a kind of madness, the idea being that he permitted himself to be examined at stated times only when the conditions allowed. Now, the tooth was covered with a plate, lamina (or layer), skilfully wrought of the best gold, and the gold was let down so deep into the gum that the cheat was not observed. However, as the plate was sometimes rubbed with a touch-stone as a test and was daily worn down by chewing, the real tooth at last began to appear. Of this fact a certain nobleman got an inkling, came to the place pretty drunk, and demanded that the tooth should be shown him, when the young fellow, at his master’s word, kept silent, the nobleman struck his dagger into the boy’s mouth, wounding him so badly that the aid of a surgeon had to be called, and so the deception was fully exposed.
“Thus the Herr Baron Fabianus, in Crema, at present Rector Magnificus of our University, told me the story in full, and those inhabitants of the place who have scholarly tastes maintain it to a man. The author of the fraud, if I remember aright, was said to have taken refuge in flight, the boy to be in chains.
“Our Pelargus, who is a native of Schwidnitz, can inform you more fully. I have often heard from him the same facts which I am writing. Farewell, and laugh in safety as much as you please at those sagacious authors.