Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/154

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122


NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. x. AUG. is, im


remedies seem to have been unavailing. Sir Kenelm Digby gives only one receipt, and that not on his own testimony :

"One that had the tooth-ach in great extremity, and had tried many medicines in vain, took a little cotton and imbibed it with Lucatella's balsam, and so put it into the hollow tooth."

A second application worked a permanent cure (' Receipts in Physic,' ed. 2, 1677, p. 23). For this balsam see The Yorksh. Archceol. Journ., vii. 57.

Butler ridicules the quacks who " scare with rhimes the tooth-ache" ('Hudibras,' pt. ii. canto hi. 289), on which see Grey's note, quoting Ben Jonson's tooth-drawer, who " calls out bitter teeth at a twitch, commands them out of any man's head upon the point of his poignard, tickles them forth with his riding-rod, and draws teeth a horseback in full speed" ('Pan's Anniversary,' 1625, ' Works,' ed. Cornwall, 1838, p. 643) ; and a passage from John Taylor's ' Figure Flinger ' : " With two words, and three leaves of four-leav'd grass, he makes the toothache stay, repass, or pass." ' N. & Q.' has recorded much folk-lore on this subject.

Shakespeare says " he that sleeps feels not the toothache" (' Cymbeline,' V. iv.) ; and in ' Much Ado about Nothing,' III. ii., when Benedick says he has the toothache, Pedro replies " draw it," and Claudio adds that it "is but a humour, or a worm," alluding to the idea that it was caused by a worm at the root of the tooth.

Christopher Ness declares that toothache is a direct warning of death, and that it makes us compassionate with our fellow- sufferers " under that dolorous distemper " ('History and Mystery,' 1690, i. 195, 402). Burns in his ' Address to the Toothache ' says that sympathy, so helpful in other complaints, is of no use in this, " the hell of all diseases," and begs the devil to give all Scotland's foes " a towmond's toothache."

Southey counts among those who do not desire the " everlasting now " " those who have the toothache, or who are having a tooth drawn ".('The Doctor,' ed. 1848, p. 63). De Quincey, who was led to opium- eating by " that terrific curse," has an interesting note to show that we should be more horrified by toothache but for its enormous diffusion and its immunity from danger (' Works,' ed. 1862, i. 4).

Poems and essays have been written by literary men upon the gout, and there are, of course, countless professional treatises on dentistry ; but I have met with only one


on toothache which can be called literary r ' The Toothache, imagined by Horace- Mayhew, and realised by George Cruik- shank,' 43 coloured and folded plates,. 12mo, David Bogue, 1849.

Tooth-extraction, gold and other stopping,, and artificial teeth were all known at an early date ; see the evidence at 1 S. x. 242,. 355, 510 ; xi. 51, 264, 316, 512 ; 2 S. xii. 417,. 481 ; 3 S. ix. 420 ; 5 S. xi. 448, 497 ; xiu 296 ; 6 S. vii. 17. There is a curious allusion in ' A Second Edition of the New Almanack for the Year 1656 ' : " He might have gone- to one or two of our London teeth-chandlers,. & have taken whole bushels of this bone- seed " (p. 9). John Watts, operator,. Raquet Court, Fleet Street, advertises in Riders' ' British Merlin,' 1709, that he supplies artificial teeth, " set in so well as- to eat with them, not to be discovered from, natural, nor to be taken out at night."

W. C. B.


LONDON STATUES AND MEMORIALS. (See 10 S. ix. 1, 102, 282, 363, 481.)

86. Statue of Thomas Guy, Guy's Hos- pital. The munificent founder of the hos- pital died in 1724, and was buried in the hospital chapel. Over his grave a marble- statue was placed in 1779 at a cost of 1,OOOZ. The outdoor statue stands in the centre^ of the quadrangle opposite the main entrance- gates. It was placed in position in 1734.

87. Crosby Obelisk, Blackfriars Road. Erected in 1771 to the memory of Brass- Crosby, Esq., Lord Mayor of London. Its- removal was discussed in 1904.

88. Statues of (a) Sir Robert Clayton, and (b) Edward VI., St. Thomas's Hospital. The old hospital in Southwark was pulled down and the present buildings erected in 1870-71. These statues were then re-erected in their present positions, (a) According to the Latin inscription thereon, this statue^ was erected in Sir R. Clayton's lifetime by the Governors, A.D. MDCCI., and by them beautified A.D. MDCCXIV. (6) This statue- " was erected at the expense of Charles Joyce, Esquire, in the year MDCCXXXVII."

89. Memorial Fountain to a Dog, Batter- sea. Erected in the Recreation Ground at a cost of 130Z., subscribed by members of the International Anti- Vivisection Council. It was unveiled on 15 Sept., 1906, and is, as the inscription sets forth, " In memory of the brown terrier dog done to death in the laboratories of University College in February, 1903, after having endured vivi-