For bleeding gums, Archigenes recommended rubbing them with a mixture of very finely pulverized myrtle and then applying astringent and tonic liquids. An endless number of local remedies evolved. In the second century A.D., one text recommended fumigation of the toothworms with smoke from burning henbane. This treatment was popular until modern times. When incision and drainage results in a putrid ulcer rather than a cure, the next step is cauterization of the area with an oval-shaped cautery.
Canines are difficult to extract because of their long wide roots.
Certainly during an extraction without anesthesia it might feel like the root tip is next to the eye. It may also be that cases had actually been encountered where an infection subsequent to the extraction of a maxillary canine extended into the cavernous sinus causing great swelling in the region of the eye and serious consequences. In any case, it was firmly believed from ancient times until the time of a French surgeon-dentist Robert Bunon, c. 1750 A.D., that there was a direct connection between the maxillary canine and the eye and such an extraction could cause ocular diseases and perhaps blindness. A common misconception regarding dental and surgical treatment in this period is that the ancients had devised some clever method of surgical anesthesia by the use of drugs or compression of the carotid arteries or hypnosis. Such is not the case.