In Serapion, too, we find many formulas for dentifrice powders, some of which are intended simply for cleaning the teeth, others for special prophylactic or curative purposes.[204]
Avicenna. One of the greatest luminaries of medicine among the Arabs was Avicenna (Ebn Sina). He was born in 980 son of a high Persian functionary; he lived a very adventurous life, held some very high places, and died in 1037. Among his works, the most important is the Canon, a book which procured him the title of “second Galen” and the still more pompous one of “prince of doctors.” A very evident proof of the immense fame which he acquired is the fact that among many oriental peoples Avicenna, even in our own days, is considered the greatest master of medicine.
The anatomy and physiology of the teeth are treated by Avicenna very minutely, but nevertheless he does not teach us, in regard to these, anything new. Like Galen, Avicenna admits that the teeth continually grow, and as a proof he gives the fact of the lengthening of the teeth, which, owing to the absence of antagonists, are not subject to any pressure or friction.
He gives much good advice with regard to the preservation and cleanliness of the teeth, to which he attaches very great importance; and on this point he remarks that the use of very hard tooth powders must be avoided, as these are liable to injure the dental substance. To this latter are also harmful, says the author, some narcotic remedies, employed against odontalgia. Burnt hartshorn is, according to him, a most valuable dentifrice. To remove tartar from the teeth, he indicates many remedies, and especially dentifrices of meerschaum, salt, burnt shells of snails and oysters, sal ammoniac, burnt gypsum (plaster of Paris), verdigris with honey, etc. Among the substances able to facilitate dentition, he enumerates several oils and fats, besides the brain of the hare and the milk of the bitch, and he disapproves the custom of giving to children, during dentition, hard objects to chew, in the erroneous belief that the biting of such objects is useful in facilitating the cutting of the teeth; he recommends, instead, the gums to be rubbed with the fingers. When the teeth begin to appear, he drops some oil into the ears of the child and covers its head, neck, and jaws with a plaster spread on cotton that has been soaked in oil.
Avicenna minutely examines the various causes of odontalgia, and among them includes also the little worms by which the dental substance was supposed to be gnawed away.
When a tooth becomes the seat of intense pain, accompanied by a throbbing feeling, Avicenna considers that this is due to an excessive accumulation of humors in the root; he therefore advises, as already Archigenes had done, the tooth to be drilled, in order to empty it, and afterward to introduce into it appropriate remedies.
According to Avicenna, he who has a loosened tooth and desires to make it firm again, must avoid using it in mastication, must not touch it with the fingers, nor move it with the tongue; besides this, he must speak as little as possible, and make use of astringent remedies.
To remove a tooth, Avicenna made use of either the forceps or the “eradicating remedies,” in which he, too, had full confidence. Like the greater part of his predecessors, Avicenna is of the opinion that the extraction of a firm tooth must be avoided as much as possible, as it may give place to an injury of the jaw, or become harmful to the visual organ, or bring on fever. On this point he remarks that, if an aching tooth appears to be sound, it is not always necessary to perform its extraction in order to cause even the most rebellious odontalgia to cease; in certain cases he obtained a complete cessation of the pain after having simply shaken the tooth without completing its extraction; which according to him was due to the double reason that by shaking the tooth a resolution of the morbid matter stagnating under it is provoked, and the action of the medicaments that are afterward made use of is thus favored.
Among the eradicating remedies, the author enumerates white arsenic, orpiment, coloquintida, tithymallus, the fat of frogs, and others. He remarks, however, that before using them it is advantageous to detach the gum all around.
Against the supposed worms in carious teeth, he praises fumigations made with the seeds of the hyoscyamus, garlic, or onion.