AUZEBI Pierre Traité d’odontalgie.

Blake, 25; Wellcome, II, 76; Poletti, 19; Weinberger, 189; see David, 18 (Paris edition of 1772). Not in Waller and Osler.

First edition.

Pierre Auzebi (1736 – after 1800) studied surgery in Toulouse, Bordeaux and Paris, where he was a pupil of Mouton, the king’s dentist. He became very well known in Lyon. He believed that the cause of tooth decay lay in an imbalance of the humours. To remedy toothache in particular, he invented a number of balms and elixirs. His Traité d’Odontalgie is divided into 8 chapters, the first 6 of which give a historical overview of what was known at the time about the first dentition, milk teeth, their loss and replacement after the final dentition. It also looks at the problem of straightening misaligned teeth, evoking the famous dentists Bourdet and his teacher, Dr Mouton. The last two chapters deal with tooth decay.

Medical provenance

Copy of Joseph Daquin (physician) with his autograph signature on the title. Joseph Daquin (1732-1815) was a physician from Savoie and a pioneer in alienist medicine. After graduating in 1757, he took a particular interest in thermal treatments and hygiene. He was appointed chief physician of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Chambéry. He was the author of the very important work La Philosophie de la folie, published in 1791 well before the work of Philippe Pinel, who did not quote his colleague in his own work, Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale, published in 1801.

First quire slightly stained.

A good copy of this rare edition.