1 54 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOET. [Book VII. 



soothsayers, that any city to which she might happen to be 

 carried, would be destroyed ; she was sent to Suessa Poraetia, 1 

 at that time a very flourishing place, but the prediction was 

 ultimately verified by its destruction. Some female children 

 are born with the sexual organs closed, 2 a thing of very unfa- 

 vourable omen ; of which Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, 

 is an instance. Some persons are born with a continuous bone 

 in the mouth, in place of teeth ; this was the case with the 

 upp^t jaw of the son of Prusias, the king of Eithynia. 3 



The teeth are the only parts of the body which resist the 

 action of fire, and are not consumed along with the rest of it. 4 

 Still, however, though they are able thus to resist flame, they 

 become corroded by a morbid state of the saliva. The teeth are 

 whitened by certain medicinal agents. 5 They are worn down 

 by use, and fail in some persons long before any other part of 

 the body. They are necessary, not only for the mastication of 

 the food, but for many other purposes as well. It is the office 

 of the front teeth to regulate the voice and the speech ; by a 

 certain arrangement, they receive, as if in concert, the stroke 

 communicated by the tongue, while by their structure in such 

 regular order, and their size, they cut short, moderate, or soften 



1 A town of Latium we learn from Livy, B. i. c. 53, that it was cap- 

 tured and plundered by Tarquinius Superbus, but he makes no mention of 

 Valeria. See B. iii. e. 9. 



2 It is stated by Seneca, De Consol. c. 16, that Cornelia survived a large 

 family of children, all of whom were carried off early in life ; of these the 

 two celebrated Gracchi, Tiberius and Caius, met with violent deaths. The 

 peculiarity here referred to, probably consisted in an imperforated hymen, a 

 mal-fbrmation which not very unfrequently exists, and requires a surgical 

 operation. B. 



a This circumstance is mentioned by Val. Maximus, B. i. c. 8. B. We 

 learn from Plutarch, that the same was the case also with Pyrrhus, king of 

 Epirus : Eurypha3us also, the Cyrenian, and Euryptolenms, the king 1 of 

 Cyprus. Herodotus, B. ix., speaks of a skull found on the plain of Pla- 

 Uea, with a similar conformation. 



4 Although the teeth, and especially their enamel, form the most inde- 

 structible substance which enters into the composition of the body, it is 

 not absolutely so ; a certain proportion of them consisting of animal mat- 

 ter, which is consumed, when exposed to a sufficient heat ; the earthy part 

 may also be dissolved by the appropriate chemical re-agents. B. 



Powerful acids for instance ; but they destroy the enamel. Lord Bacon 

 recommends the ashes of tobacco as a whitener of the teeth ; but that has 

 been found to have a similar effect. 



