Dissertation on the diseases of the maxillary sinus : read before the American Society of Dental Surgeons, at their third annual meeting, held in Boston, July 20, 1842 / by Chapin A. Harris.

  • Harris, Chapin A. (Chapin Aaron), 1806-1860.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dissertation on the diseases of the maxillary sinus : read before the American Society of Dental Surgeons, at their third annual meeting, held in Boston, July 20, 1842 / by Chapin A. Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the functional operations of the body have become so much deranged as to prevent their restoration, and the bones of the face and nose have become seriously implicated with the affection of the sinus, the combined resources both of medicine and surgery will prove unavailing. In young and middle aged subjects of good constitutions, a morbid action may exist in the antrum for years without giving rise to any very alarming symptoms, while the same species of affection in another less healthy constituted, would rapidly extend itself and degenerate into so malignant a form of disease as to threaten the speedy destruction of the life of the patient. Medical history abounds with examples of this kind, and they conclusively establish, that the state of the general health and habit of body, whatever may have been the primitive characteristics of the malady, ultimately determine its malignancy, and that in the treatment of affections of this cavity, as well as other local dis- eases of the body, these should not be overlooked. But, independently of the danger of the affections which seat themselves here, they, for the most part are very loathsome, and subject the patient to great annoyance. They change the qualities of the secretions of this cavity and cause them to exhale a very nauseating and fetid odor. This, in many instances, is almost insufferable to the patient, and when it is considered that these secretions must have egress through some opening, and when pre- vented from escaping through the natural one into the nose, as is often the case, that they evacuate themselves through an artificial one formed by art, or effected by their own acrimonious and dis- organizing qualities, through the cheek, alveolar border or palatine arch, the inconvenience, it can readily be imagined, must be great.