De dentium affectibus

they do not join by their sharpness; but all adhere to their gums with deep roots, the front ones with a single root, the back ones with several, with the rest of their part bare, for if they were covered by any membrane, it would be easily consumed by that continuous use.

XIIX.

The nature of the connection, therefore, is by no means the same as that of other bones or cartilages, but clearly different; in that they are inserted into their sockets only by gomphosis a peg-and-socket joint, fixed like nails.

XIX.

Furthermore, to pass on to ὀδοντοφυΐαν dentition/teething, the teeth are infested by various affections, the causes of which are sometimes external, sometimes internal; to which we also add that weakness and promptness to suffer which some bring with them into this world, acquired from their parents as if by inheritance.

XX.

Thus, we see the bodies of the teeth themselves break, erode, and finally rot, not so much because of flowing humors as because of other external injuries to which they are daily exposed; most especially, because the foods in whose processing they labor are offered to them too hot, or too cold, and sometimes even very hard, by which, if this happens frequently, they cannot but be vehemently injured.

XXI.

Indeed, sometimes it happens that they fall out of their own place of their own accord, especially the front ones; but without pain, when they have long before been loosened because the sockets, to which they adhered by a single root, were relaxed by superfluous humor.

XXII.

But of pain (which happens almost only to the back teeth, and for whose symptoms the help of physicians is especially sought), we establish as the primary internal cause a defluxion a flowing down of humors.