University of Maryland Baltimore Dental School - Mirror Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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THE MIRROR two superior cuspids and four incisors united by gold thread. Two of these incisors seemed to have belonged to another person and to have been placed there in order to replace the missing ones. This piece, which was found in one of the most ancient vaults, proves that the art of dentistry was pretty far advanced at Sidon. The rise of the Mohammedan empire, which influenced Europe so deeply both politically and intellectually, made its mark also in the history of medicine and surgery. Although the Arab thought more of his steed than of his wife, yet he did not fail to appreciate self and give time and attention to the pillars of the mouth, as he called the teeth. Among the archives of tradition in Arabia we are informed that the augur and physician Navius Aetius, as early as 300 A. D., discovered the foramina in the roots through which the nerves and vessels enter the pulp chamber, and for years subsequent to this discovery the Christian world was ignorant of this and other of his important finds. Arabians never cease boasting of Aetius, who, at one time, was a professor and tutor in the medical and dental departments of the celebrated Alex- andrian University. The custom of washing the mouth every morning, which is adopted by several nations, has become the sub- ject of a religious precept among the Arabians to make the little ablution with the face turned toward Mecca ; they rinse the mouth thrice and clean their teeth with a brush. This custom shows how highly the preservation of the teeth is esteemed by a people who formerly were forbidden, according to Menavius, to have a tooth extracted without permission from the chief. The Greeks, it is said, learned what the Egyptians knew, and, no doubt, the science of dental surgery emigrated from Egypt to Greece, as did nearly all knowledge. Homer, the great Greek sage and historian, tells us that sculapius, a surgeon who lived about 1250 B. C., used a narcotic to produce insensibility when performing minor operations, such at tooth-drawing. He, too, we are informed, was the first to teach the art of tooth purging and filling. He was thought of so l ighly by the Greeks that a statue 17

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THE MIRROR very bad. Caries, with its resulting odontalgia, is quite common ; but the most frequent cause of trouble is the accumulation of tar- tar. It is one of the peculiarities of the peculiar land that among the females one seldom meets with beauty, either among the very young or the aged. In both cases they are entirely devoid of color, but in early womanhood it is not rare, nor is color wanting to lend its charm. The teeth of the musmies, or daughters, of Japan are objects of envy, but the horrible custom of blacking the teeth after marriage destroys what little beauty time has not yet stolen. Ir- regularities are common. Their teeth being large, the jaw is not sufficiently expanded for their proper placement. Owing to the fact that dentistry exists only as a mechanical trade, the status of those who practice it is not high. Dentistry does not give social position, neither does it wealth. In full practice, a dentist may get two or three cases in a month, and for some he may receive as high as $5 ; but that is a price far above the ability of the majority to pay, from $i to $2 being the usual rate. The base is always of wood. On the cheaper sorts the teeth are merely outlined upon the base, but generally they consist of ivory, shark ' s teeth, or stone, set into the wood and retained in position by being strung on a thread, which is secured at each end by a peg driven into the hole where it makes its exit from the base. The Japanese are a very dextrous people, and if superstitions could be eliminated much in a mechanical sense might be expected. Ancient Phoenicia, bordering on the eastern coast of the Medi- terranean Sea, was particularly noted for its two great cities, Sidon and grand Tyre, and these cities, in turn, were famous for their manufacturers and artists. With Phoenician art and science the modern world has been little acquainted until the discoveries made by General de Cesnola, the results of which are in the Ces- nola collection at the Metropolitan Museum, New York city. A specimen of ancient Phoenician dentistry is accurately described by M. Ernest Renan in his work, entitled Mission de Phoenicie et le Campangne de Sidon, as follows : But that which was most interesting was the upper portion of a woman ' s jaw, showing th e 16

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THE MIRROR of him was made in gold, and after his death he was callled the God of Medicine. The greatest surgeon that ever lived, says Herodotus, was Hippocrates, who lived about 450 B. C. This genius was a distant relative of yEsculapius, and, like this great surgeon, was divinely skilled in the practice of medicine and surgery. At the time of the birth of Hippocrates medicine and surgery were entirely in the hands of the heathen priesthood, who knew little of medicine as a science and so thoroughly clothed the subject with superstition and mysteries that future generations still suffer the effect. Al- though himself the son of a priest-physician and inheriting all the superstition, and educated in the traditions of the priestly rites, he broke loose from former teachings and proclaimed to all the civilized world that medicine was based on inductive philosophy and disclosed at the risk of his life that the priestly system was a fraud and an imposition. He classified and described diseases, and with him medicine and surgery began their careers as sciences. When we consider the age in which he lived — 400 B. C. — and the diffiulties under which he studied medicine, we cannot fail to ad- mire the great advance he made. Those who studied general or dental surgery under Hippocrates were obliged to subscribe to what is known as the Hippocratic oath, which was as follows : I swear by Apollo, the physician, by sculapius, by Hygeia and Panaca, and by all the gods and goddesses, that to the best of my power and judgment I will faithfully observe this oath and ob- ligation. The master who has instructed me in this art I will esteem as my parents and supply, as occasion may require, with the com- forts and necessaries of life. His children I will regard as my own brothers, and if they desire to learn I will instruct them in the same art without any reward or obligation. The precepts, the ex- planations and whatever else belongs to the art, I will communi- cate to my own children, to the children of my master, to such other pupils as have subscribed to the physician ' s and surgeon ' s oath, and to no other persons. My patients shall be treated to the best of my power and judgment, in the most salutary manner, 18