“In women such a thing was considered a bad augury in the days of the kings. In fact, Valeria having been born with teeth, the seers said that she would be the ruin of the city to which she would be taken; she was sent to Suessa Pometia, which in those days was a very flourishing city; and, in fact, the prediction was verified. Some, instead of teeth, have an entire bone; of this there was an example in the son of Prusias, King of Bithynia, who instead of upper teeth had one single bone.”
“The teeth alone are not consumed by fire, and do not burn with the rest of the body. And yet these teeth, which withstand the flames, are worn away and hollowed out by pituita. They wear out by being used. Nor are they necessary for mastication alone, for the foremost ones regulate the voice and words, producing by the beat of the tongue special sounds.”
“Men have thirty-two teeth, women a lesser number. It is, however, believed that augury may be taken from the teeth; and to have a greater number than usual is considered an indication of long life. The presence of two eye teeth at the right side of the upper jaw presages favorable fortune, as was verified in Agrippina, the mother of Domitius Nero; on the left side, however, they are of sad foreboding.”
“The last teeth, which are called the genuine teeth, appear toward the twentieth year of age; many persons, however, do not have them until their eightieth year. Teeth fall out in old age and then spring up again; of this there can be no doubt. Mutianus writes of having known a certain Zancle of Samothracia, in whom teeth reappeared after he had completed his one hundred and fourth year. Timarcus, son of Nicocles of Paphus, had two rows of molar teeth, whilst a brother of his did not change his incisor teeth at all, which, therefore, wore down little by little. There once lived a man who had a tooth in his palate. The canine teeth, when by any chance they fall out, do not reappear any more.”[129]
“In the teeth of man there exists a poisonous substance which has the effect of dimming the brightness of a looking-glass when they are presented uncovered before it; and if they are uncovered in front of young unfledged pigeons, these take ill and die.”[130]
The second of these two statements is but a prejudice, like many others; but we find the first very strange indeed, it being a surprising thing that a man like Pliny should have attributed to an imaginary poison of the teeth what is the simple effect of the moistures of the breath.
In Chapters CXV and CXVII of Book XI are found some observations which are somewhat interesting to us:
“A man’s breath becomes infected by the bad quality of food, by the bad state of the teeth, and still more by old age.”
“Simple food is very beneficial to man; the variety of flavors instead is very harmful. Sour or too abundant foods are digested with difficulty, and also those which are ravenously swallowed. As a remedy, vomiting has come into use; but it makes the body cold and is most pernicious to the eyes and to the teeth.”
There is no doubt that the habit of often provoking vomitus—which, in those times of excessive corruption and intemperance, had come into general use—must have resulted in enormous harm to the teeth, especially by the action exercised upon them by the hydrochloric acid contained in the gastric juice, and by the organic acids of fermentation.