Caelius Aurelianus' textbook on medicine of the fifth century: rhythm in asthma, pain, and drug effects.

Caelius Aurelianus was a Greek-Roman physician in the fifth century. He translated the work of Soranus from Ephesus into Latin and extended the medical knowledge of his time in several textbooks. His book "De Morbis acutis et chronicis" was reprinted many times up to the 19th century and served as the handbook for physicians. Aurelianus aready described in detail the rhythmic pattern - daily and seasonally - of asthma. Tooth pain was also first described by Caelius Aurelianus to peak at night and that drugs were not able to fully suppress the pain, a first indication of chronopharmacology.

Put a Frog in Your Mouth: Toothache 'Cures' from Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Ireland.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, toothache must have been a common complaint in Ireland, to judge from the number of toothache 'cures' reported as part of The Schools' Collection (SC) or 'Bailiúchán na Scol', a folklore-collecting scheme that was undertaken in the Irish Republic in 1937 and 1938, and upon which this article is based. These cures range from quasi-medical treatments, such as packing the affected tooth with tobacco, to more folkloric, or magico-religious cures, such as licking a frog or pulling out a tooth from a corpse, as well as herbal and mineral remedies.

Did Richard III pray to Saint Apollonia for relief from toothache?

Richard III is known to have had a particular devotion to St Apollonia who is the Patron Saint of sufferers from toothache. The dentition in his skeleton exhumed from a car park in Leicester shows missing teeth which are thought to have been extracted due to caries. It is suggested that Richard, when he was Duke of Gloucester, had prayed to St Apollonia for the relief of toothache before submitting to undergo dental extractions.

Sair teeth-the hell o'a' diseases.

A discussion of a poem about toothache, written in Scots and published in 1917 and a comparing it to Robert Burns' Address to the Toothache.

,, da mir Zahnschmerz unausstehlich ist".

Little is known about the people who suffered from toothache or other dental illnesses in the 19th century. This is, in part, due to the lack of sources describing individual experiences with such ailments. The patient journals of the homoeopath Clemens Maria Franz von Bönninghausen (1785­1864), who practiced in Münster in Westphalia between 1829 and 1864, offer the possibility of learning more about patients in the field of dental care and medicine. Whilst practising, Bönninghausen treated more than 27,000 patients. The entries he made about 14,266 of them were transcribed in a database which provides a rich source of information about the clientele the homoeopath had, their illnesses and their behaviour during medical treatment. 785 patients told the homoeopath that they had problems with their teeth. Some only vaguely said that they had some kind of ache, whilst others described pulling, stabbing, searing or even burning and itching sensations. The majority of these people also had tried other cures before. In some cases, teeth already had been pulled out without improving the situation. Therefore the entries in the patient journals are proof of the demand for dental care and treatment and the growing awareness of people towards their dental health. But during their search for a cure, they not only consulted the trained dentists who could, in most cases, only offer unsuccessful treatments. This clashed with the attempts by these trained specialists to improve their social status and professionalisation.

Los dolores de Don Porfirio / Don Porfirio´s woes

Incluso sin la historia médica de Don Porfi rio, sólo por escuchar unainteresante crónica del historiador Juan Manuel Villalpando, hoy en el centenario de su muerte, y ante la encontrada opinión de quienes sin saber mucho de historia lo juzgan como un tirano dictador y otros más enterados y ante el legado histórico y cultural lo llaman héroe liberal. Éste es un relato alineado y paralelo a lo que probablemente pasó en la boca y dientes de Don Porfirio cuando su encía desguarnecida ostentaba dolor en algunos dientes. Con las obras consultadas y las fuentesencontradas no sabemos bien qué fue lo más doloroso; tal vez el dolor de la derrota, o el dolor insoportable por una muela rota

Though a detailed medical history of Porfirio Díaz has yet to be un-covered, much can be learned from an interesting chronicle published by historian Juan Manuel Villalpando in what is the centenary of the death of this former Mexican president, one regarded as a tyrant dicta-tor by those with only a limited knowledge of history, while the more informed proclaim him to be a liberal hero, based on his historical and cultural legacy. This complementary and parallel account provides a picture of what is likely to have been going on in the mouth and teeth of the president as he endured the exposed gum and the toothache that affected several of Don Porfi rio’s teeth. Based on the works consulted and sources found, we cannot be certain which was the greater of Don Pofi rio’s woes: the pain of defeat or the unbearable agony of a broken tooth.

Shirley Jackson's "The Tooth": Dentistry as Horror, the Imagination as a Shield.

On her way to a dreaded dental appointment to have an aching tooth pulled, Clara Spencer meets a solicitous stranger, Jim, and by the end of the story runs off with him, in many interpretations to perdition. But since 1) Shirley Jackson (who herself had much dental work and hated it) has suffered from typecasting as a horror writer, 2) dental gas anesthesia protocols of the time as Clara is anticipating could lead to sexual hallucinations, and 3) contemporary literature celebrated escapist fantasy (e.g., the invisible giant rabbit in Harvey), this article proposes instead that Jim is Clara's own imaginative, comforting, therapeutic creation.

Classical music and the teeth.

Teeth and their pathologies are frequent themes in classical music. The teeth have inspired popular songwriters such as Thomas Crecquillon, Carl Loewe, Amilcare Ponchielli & Christian Sinding; as well as composers whose works are still played all over the world, such as Robert Schumann and Jacques Offenbach. This paper examines several selections in which the inspiring theme is the teeth and the pain they can cause, from the suffering of toothache, to the happier occasion of a baby's first tooth.

[The oral problems of queen Elizabeth I]. / De mondproblemen van koningin Elizabeth I.

Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603), probably the most famous English Queen ever, had persistent oral problems. Her oral problems were so serious that they probably hampered the Queen in the performance of her tasks.

Mosquitoes, flies and dental cavities: Dr. Howard Riley Raper's public campaign to prevent toothache.

Dr. Howard Riley Raper (1886-1978) was an early oral health pioneer and dental roentgenology faculty member of the Indiana Dental College (IDC) who single-handedly introduced key concepts in radiology to dentistry. Due to his efforts, IDC became in 1910-11 the first dental school to have a regular course in dental radiology. Virtually all American dental schools soon added this subject to their regular curriculum. Raper's text, Elementary and Dental Radiography (1913) became the first comprehensive student textbook of dental X-ray diagnosis. In his 1933 Blue Book entitled, The New Aim in the Care of the Teeth, Raper elaborated upon his mission to prevent caries, by comparing the insidious damages of tooth decay with the threat of insect-borne disease.

[The overview of the prevention and treatment of dental disease in ancient China].

About 2000 years ago, our country already had a record about mouth washing. It was one of the earliest countries that invented teeth brushing and the toothbrush. It mentioned many kinds of effective techniques of teeth protection and health improvment such as swallowing the saliva, knocking the teeth and practising Qigong. About 3000 years ago, our country already had records about dental disease and had established the specialty of stomatology and dentistry in the Tang dynasty. The methods of treating toothache by acupuncture and external medicine, treating caries by arsenic trioxide and using silver paste to fill the teeth, using artificial teeth for restoration, and treating periodontosis by teeth-cleaning techniques all took the lead in the world. Traditional Chinese Medicines are still used today to treat toothache and periodontosis in clinic.

[Dental care, dental diseases and dentistry in antiquity]. / Fogapolás, fogbetegségek és fogászati beavatkozások az ókorban.

Numerous written relicts, belletristic works (poems of Martial, Juvenal, Ovid etc.) indicate that oral hygiene and its tools (toothbrush, toothpick, use of tooth pastes and tooth-powder) were used long before our times. Already ancient people started to remove, file, dye and inlay teeth. The teeth were dyed red, green or black in Egypt, red or brown (with henna or betel) in India, white by Romans. The teeth decoration has a long but forgotten history. The most skillful and artistic work was done by the Maya's between 900 BC and 1500 AD. The modification of contours (more than fifty forms) of the incisors were practiced also in Mesoamerica. Dentistry was surely practiced in ancient Egypt, India, China, Greece and Rome, while odontology and especially suitable dental appliances arose only by Etruscan. Dental prosthesis, including bridges and simple retention bands were invented by the Etruscans 2500 years ago. These Etruscan bridges were worn mostly by females, suggesting that cosmetics was the principal dental concern. Some,--if not all--of the Roman and other prostheses have been purely ornamental. Orthodontic appliances are also Etruscan invention. The holes caused by caries were filled with garlic, incense, caraway seed in Egypt, with wood or lead in Rome, and with "silver-paste" (amalgam) in ancient China. The toothache was cured with poppy-tee, or hashish and nightshade plants (Solanaceae) in Egypt, Greece, Roman Empire while with coca (Erythroxylon coca) in South-America.

[History of pain treatment from 1500 to 1900]. / Geschichte der Schmerztherapie 1500 bis 1900.

The history of pain treatment likely started in the cradle of mankind, as the experience of pain from many causes presumably had an aversive dimension comparable in its ranking to elementary sensations and motivations such as hunger, thirst, maintenance of body temperature, and sexuality-all vital for individual and genetic survival. Thus, pain certainly was among the drives to create social behavior and medicine-these functions still are inherent in pain. The period of history from 1500, as considered here, is dominated by the emergence of science. The exploration of the inside of the human body found the brain to be the seat of sensations, emotions, and behavior, and this progress included pain as well, slowly disabusing it from the magic elements and demons still inherent from early times. The rational phase of medicine began and also included new concepts of pain as first conceived by Descartes. The treatment and prevention of pain became a strong motive of medicine, with new approaches in drug treatment, physical applications such as electricity, and discoveries of psychosocial implementations. During the nineteenth century the most important breakthroughs in pain treatment included general and local anesthesia as well as analgesic drugs from morphine to anti-inflammatory agents. They succeeded in taking the terror out of the agonizing pain of surgery and dramatic courses of diseases. Today's natural extension of the medical success in controlling acute pain may be seen in the period of pain medicine aimed at understanding and preventing chronic pain.