TOOTHACHE IN HISTORY

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 December 1929, Page 4

TOOTHACHE IN HISTORY

REMEDIES AND INVOCATIONS. It may be the supreme physical pain, but more remedies have been devised for it than for all other aches put together. There is no truth in the rumour that toothaches began with the dentist’s buzzer. Teeth, nicely filled, have been found strewn around the graves and houses of the ancient Peruvians and Egyptians. Even in pre-historic caves, filled teeth have been located, indicating that stone hatchets were used not solely for walloping enemies and coy maidens on the head. 1 In almost all Christian countries St. Apollonia is known as the patron of toothache, and she is appealed to in countless chapels for a cure. The original tale has it, that St. Apollonia was a virgin of advanced age, who suffered martydrom in 248 A.D. at Alexandria, when the Christians were being persecuted, and the peculiar method of torture to which she was subjected was that of having her teeth knocked out, her jaws crushed, and then, when a pyre had been lighted, and she was asked to abjure Christianity, she leaped into the flames and suffered a martyr’s death. This story was later embelished, making her a beautiful young maiden who was tortured upon the order of the Roman Emperor Julian, who had her teeth knocked out with pointed instruments. She prayed for relief from the excruciating pain, and when she still refused to adjure the Christian faith, Julian ordered her tongue to be cut out. Her body was buried by the

famous Polycarp, but through her marvellous courage hundreds who witnessed the torture became con-

verted to Christianity. In Bavaria she is widely venerated with some invocations like this: Saint Apollonia. A poor sinner, I stand here, My teeth are very bad. Please give me rest in my bones, ' That I forget the toothache soon! It is held in many centres of her cult that everyone who fasts on her feast day, February 9, will not have a toothache during the following year. In Bavaria, saying a pater noster in her name each day is supposed to prevent toothache. A Turk, seeing a child weeping on the street, asked: “Why art thou crying?” “A snake bit me,” the child replied. “That is nothing. I thought you had a toothache,” said the Turk, and went his way. Even Shakespeare hafl his word

on the subject: For there was never yet a philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently. (Much Ado About Nothing). Robert Burns wrote an “Address to the Toothache”: My curse upon thy venpm’d stang That shoots my tortured gums alang; And through my lug gies monie a twang, With gnawing vengeance. Tearing my nerves with bitter pang, Like racking engines!

As, in the case with many other ills, toothache is supposed to be engendered by the evil eye or witchcraft. If a man complains about it he may transfer it to you, and so in Brandenburg they say': You keep your pain for yourself, And complain to the stone! As late as the seventeenth century the people of Nerikh, near Oerebro, in Sweden, made sacrifices to Thor against the toothache. It is a very ancient belief, almost world-wide, that worms cause toothache. The Bosnian gipsies gave their

god of the toothache the shape of a worm. In ancient Babylonia they believed this worm caused toothache, as is told in an old poem: Me! What are these ripe figs and soft pomegranates? Lift me up, between the teeth and the jawbone set me, That I may destroy the blood of the teeth, And ruin their, strength, Grasp the prong and seize the root. SCIENCE AND THE WORM. Science, of course, eventually discarded this idea, though not until the eighteenth century, but the superstition still, prevails. In India, for instance, the nomadic tribes are noted for charms to take out the worm which causes toothache. Chinese dentists offer medicines which the patient is supposed to apply to the face, when the worm will fall out. ■ The dentist carries with him small strips of white paper, about one-tenth of an inch in length, which so much resemble worms that the layman cannot distinguish them apart. He hides these in his sleeves or under his long fingernails. While ho looks for the worms. in the patient’s mouth, .he drops the strips into the mcfuth, and, taking them out, . triumphantly exhibits them, and the sufferer is cured. In many European countries the belief in the worm-cause is still held. When the tooth is pulled they see the pulp hanging from the tooth, and in it see the worm. The inhabitants of the Orkney Islands all call toothache “the worm.” In Philip Massinger’s “Parliament of Love” the idea appears thus: — 1 am troubled With a toothache or with love I know not whether; There is a worm in both. AH kinds of charms are used in various lands for toothache, from a cord around the loins to written amulets of infinite variety. Some invocations are to the moon, to St. Peter, or most frequently to St. Ppollonia. In some charms the pain is to be transferred to inanimate objects, such as trees, stones, doors, water or the ground. While originally these charms were pagan, many were taken over by the early Christian practitioners. Thursday was, Thor’s day, and so those who fasted on Maunday Thursday were supposed to free themselves from toothache. In Western Germany and North-eastern France, Good Friday was supposed to be the best day for getting rid of toothache. In Silesia people suffering from toothache combed their hair on Good Friday, burned the hair that fell out and inhaled the fumes. . In Sussex, England, you were told to protect yourselves from toothache by putting on the right stocking first, or pitting the right leg into the trousers before the left. Another common remedy for toothache is to hold whisky in the mouth —if you can get the whisky. A Hindu story has it that an elephant, having a terrible toothache, ran against a full barrel of beer, broke it, drank, and became drunk from the beer and forgot his pain. In the Talmud a similar story is told of an ox. Almost every herb, vegetable or' fruit, has been recommended as antitoothache in some country.