s judgment, as though it were a case worthy of
their consideration. The first to distinguish himself was _Jacobus
Horstius_, Professor of Medicine in the University of Helmstad. This
doctor, in a paper which he caused to be printed, demonstrated that
this golden tooth was partly a work of nature and partly miraculous;
and he declared that in whatever light one viewed it, it was manifestly
a consolation sent from above to the Christians of Bohemia, on whom the
Turks were then inflicting the worst barbarities.

"_Martinus Rulandus_ published simultaneously with Horstius the story
of the golden tooth. It is true that two years later _Johannes
Ingolsteterus_ refuted the story of Rulandus, but the latter in the
same year, 1597, not in the least discouraged, defended his work
against the attacks of Ingolsteterus.

"_Andreas Libavius_ then entered the lists, and published a book in
which he recounted what had been said for and against the golden tooth.
This gave rise to great disputes concerning a matter which ultimately
proved to be a somewhat clumsy deception. The child was taken to
Breslau, where everybody hastened to see so wonderful a novelty. They
brought him before a number of doctors, assembled in great perplexity
to examine the famous golden tooth. Amongst them was _Christophorus
Rhumbaumius_, a professor of medicine, who was most anxious to see
before believing.

"First of all, a goldsmith, wishing to satisfy himself that the tooth
was of gold, applied to it his touch-stone, and the line left on the
stone appeared, to the naked eye, to be in real gold, but on the
application of aqua fortis to this line, every trace disappeared, and a
part of the swindle was exposed. Christophorus Khumbaumius, an
intelligent and skillful man, on examining the tooth more closely,
perceived in it a little hole, and, inserting a probe, found that it
was simply a sheet of copper probably washed with gold. He could with
ease have removed the copper covering had not the trickster, who was
taking the child from town to town, opposed it, complaining bitterly of
the injury that was being done him by thus depriving him of the chance
of taking money from the curious and the credulous.

"The swindler and child disappeared, and no one knows to this day
exactly what became of them. But because learned men have been duped
now and then, that is no reason for perpetual doubt.... and although
the story of the golden tooth be false, we shou