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

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THE MIRROR without any injury or violence; neither will I be prevailed upon by another to administer pernicious physics. The Grecian custom of cremating the dead has caused the scarcity of dental specimens. What proof we have of their knowl- edge of dental prosthesis is found in the literature of these people. We will now bid the scholarly Grecians good-by and travel to the land of war — Italy — there to greet the model Roman. Al- though the Romans were constantly engaged in battle, yet some attention was paid to the finer arts. Like their immediate neigh- bors, the Grecians, after whom they copied, they made priests of the temples custodians of divine cure. The following, taken from an ancient work on mythological beliefs, gives a complete list of such saints and gods as the plebeians were obliged to give devotion in case of ordinary dental troubles : Saint Appollonia guarded against toothache; Saint Lucy guarded against sore tooth; Saint Anthony guarded against inflammation; Saint Ger- manus guarded against diseased eruption ; Saint Marcus guarded against neuralgia ; Saint Herbert guarded against poisoned teeth. The Roman priests also erected temples in memory of the great Grecian physician, sculapius, and worshiped him as a god of medicine. Among the voluminous writings of the Latin poets frequent reference is made to artificial teeth. The famous Mar- tial, who lived in the first century B. C., says that a Roman den- tist, Cascellius, is in the habit of fastening, as well as extracting, the teeth. To Lelius the same author says: You are not ashamed to purchase teeth and hair, and adds that the toothless mouth of gle was repaired with bone and ivory ; also that Galla, more refined, removed her artificial teeth during the night. An eminent EngHsh scholar adds : Cicero, when speak- ing of a law passed to check the unnecessary expense of funerals, says : ' Neve aurum addito, ' etc. ; that is. Add no gold to the funeral ofiferings, but whosoever has his teeth bound with gold ' suevi auro- dentes vincti, ' let it be no evasion of the law to bury or burn him without it. The same authority continues, saying: Any mechanical den- 19

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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

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THE MIRROR tistry, or prosthetic dentistry, as our American friends prefer to call it, that was practiced in ancient Rome appears to have been rather primitive, as the following from the poet Martial shows : ' Thou has only three teeth, and these Are of boxwood, varnished over. Thou shouldst fear to laugh ; Weep always, if thou art wise. ' The Etrurians, who inhabited the northern part of Italy, were well skilled in mechanical sciences, and Etruria flourished as the Italian seat of learning, wealth and power. Among the Etrurians dental science was studied and practiced as a specialty of medicine. However, in this department of learning, says Prof. G. A. F. Van Rhyn, the eminent archaeologist, the Etrurians were imita- tive rather than creative, and the art bore at every period the marks of foreign influence, especially Egyptian, Babylonian and Grecian. At the International Congress held in Rome in 1900 Professor Guerini exhibited several specimens of dental art which proved that something very much like bridgework was practiced in ancient Italy so efficiently that it has lasted thirty centuries. Artificial crowns have also been found in Etruscan tombs. Dr. Deneffe states that in the museum of the University of Ghent there is a set of artificial teeth found in a tomb at Orvieto, with jewels and Etruscan vases; he gives their date as from 5000 to 6000 years before Christ. The science of dentistry from the fifth to the eighteenth cen- turies was entirely neglected, and to the suffering masses lost in oblivion during the long and blank period of human record his- torically known as the Middle Ages. In this time the mere opera- tion of extracting useless and painful teeth was the extent of dental science. Thus this dark age not only retarded advance- ment in our science, but it produced retrogression, with but few occasional rays of light penetrating its misty veil, only to be im- mediately swallowed in the dense surrounding gloom of supersti- tion and religious intolerance. Dentistry fell like all other call-