The Operator for the Teeth: Charles Allen 1685
The first English Dentistry Text-book.
Page 2
Which is so consonant to truth, that the vulgar observation itself has turned it into a common proverb: For they use to say of one whose teeth are naturally thin, that he is short lived, whereof the reason is that such persons do not chew their meat well: moreover the loss of teeth renders the pronunciation both troublesome to one’s self, and unintelligible to others: in a word the corruption and want of them is as great a deformity, and of as much prejudice to one, as anything whatsoever can be.
Section 1
Of the Nature of the Teeth
What men are wont to call Science, or the cognition of any being, is by them commonly divided into two several parts: one whereof is termed Theoretical, and the other Practical. The first includes the reasons and causes of things, with the order and manner of their progress in coming to be what they are. The second regards only their properties, and effects, and what they are actually in themselves, without enquiring how they come to be so made, or thus qualified. As for example those two branches of Humane learning, (in respect to physical matters) when philosophers go about to inspect the nature of lodestone: they search into its origins, tracing out the several causes of its formation, even to their source or spring head: from whence they draw arguments for the solution of all phenomena thereof: whereas mariners consider it only as a certain stone that draws iron to itself: having the power of communicating its properties to the said iron: and which if not hindered (by its own gravity or any other impediment) will always turn one of its sides towards the north, and another diametrically opposed towards the South. Which sufficeth them for the use they make