Guy lets us know that other surgeons made the patients go to sleep by giving them opium to drink; but he decidedly disapproves of such a practice, as he has heard of patients who through this have died.
Valescus of Taranta (called by the French authors Valescon or Balescon de Tarente or Tharare), professor at the University of Montpellier at the beginning of the fifteenth century, wrote a valuable treatise on medicine and surgery, entitled Philonium pharmaceuticum et chirurgicum, de medendis omnibus humani corporis affectibus. As to the diseases of the teeth, he especially follows Guy de Chauliac, but treats the subject at greater length, profiting by what has been written on the subject by all the ancient writers, and especially the Arabians.
Among the many remedies which he recommends against toothache, here are some:
“℞—Wild mint, pyrethrum, white pepper, myrrh, two drams of each; let these be pulverized and made into a paste with the pulp of raisins or with white wax and with some turpentine; and let this mass be divided into small balls as large as filberts, of which one must be masticated at a time, with the aching teeth.”[255]
Another masticatory is composed of origanum, pyrethrum, cinnamon, and ginger, made into a paste with the yolk of an egg cooked under the coals.
To calm dental pains, the vapors of a decoction of wild lavender, marjoram, rue, chamelea, and melilot are often efficacious. As to fumigations, they can be made not only with vegetable substances (onion or mustard seed, rue, etc.), but also by burning scrapings of the hoof of an ass. The fumes may be made to reach the aching tooth, by means of a funnel. Here are the words of the author: “Fiant suffitus ex rasura ungulæ asini, et fumus recipiatur per infundibulum.”
Decayed teeth may be filled, according to Valescus, to satisfy four different indications: To calm or prevent pain, to prevent any further spreading of the caries, to kill the worms, and to sweeten the breath. He advises that the carious cavities should be filled up with powdered nigella, pepper, myrrh, salt, and theriac; or else with pyrethrum, gum ammoniac, and opium; or else with celery seeds pulverized, opium, and hyoscyamus; or with the cast-off skin of serpents boiled in vinegar; or with gallia and cyperus. The filling with these last two substances are especially suitable, according to the author, to preserve the teeth from further spreading of the caries: “Si gallia et cyperus cavis dentibus applicentur, dentes ulterius non corrodentur.”
To kill the supposed worms of the teeth, Valescus counsels three different methods, of which the first consists of the usual fumigations with seeds of hyoscyamus, onion, leek, coloquintida; the second consists in filling the carious cavity with a mixture of myrrh and aloes; and lastly, the third, in applying inside the cavity the milky juice of the tithymal, or the juice of the persicaria.[256]
In regard to tartar of the teeth—which he calls materia lapidea, i. e., stony substance—Valescus says that it must be removed little by little, either with iron instruments or with dentifrices partly cleansing and partly styptic. After the tartar has been removed, it is necessary to wash the teeth often with white wine and to rub them with roasted salt.[257]
Valescus, too, like the majority of ancient writers, is not at all favorable to the extraction of teeth. He says that recourse must not be had to this operation except when a tooth is the cause of most violent pain and every remedy has been of no avail. But the reasons which he gives in support of this opinion are very plausible; and whilst most of the authors who preceded him showed themselves adverse to extraction, because they considered it dangerous, he does not allude in the least to such dangers, but wishes extraction to be avoided, if possible, “because the teeth, even when they are in some parts corroded, yet nevertheless, after the pain is calmed, aid mastication and besides render the others firmer.”[258]