led review of this
would take us too far afield, but at least something may be said of two
or three of the great representative surgical writers who touched on
this specialty.

About the middle of the fourteenth century that prince of surgeons, and
model of surgical writers, Guy de Chauliac, wrote his great text-book of
surgery, "Le Grande Chirurgie." An extremely interesting feature of this
work is to be found in the chapters that treat of diseases of the teeth.
These are not very comprehensive, and are evidently not so much the
result of his experience, as the fruit of his reading, yet they contain
many practical valuable ideas that are supposed to be ever so much later
than the middle of the fourteenth century. His anatomy and physiology at
least are not without many errors. His rules for the preservation of the
teeth show that the ordinary causes of dental decay were well recognized
even as early as this. Emphasis was laid on not taking foods too hot or
too cold, and above all not to follow either hot or cold food by
something very different from it in temperature. The breaking of hard
things with the teeth was recognized as one of the most frequent causes
of such deterioration of the enamel as gives opportunity for the
development of decay. The eating of sweets, and especially the sticky
sweets--preserves and the like--was recognized as an important source of
caries. The teeth were supposed to be cleaned frequently, and not to be
cleaned too roughly, for this would do more harm than good. We find
these rules repeated by succeeding writers on general surgery, who touch
upon dentistry, or at least the care of the teeth, and they were not
original with Guy de Chauliac, but part of the tradition of surgery.

As noted by Guerini in his "History of Dentistry," the translation of
which was published under the auspices of the National Dental
Association of the United States of America,[28] Chauliac recognized the
dentists as specialists. Besides, it should be added, as is evident from
his enumeration of the surgical instruments which he declares necessary
for them, they were not as we might easily think in the modern time mere
tooth pullers, but at least the best among them treated teeth as far as
their limited knowledge and means at command enabled them to do so, and
these means were much more elaborate than we have been led to think, and
much more detailed than we have reason to know that they were at
certain subsequent