Treatise on the natural history and diseases of the human teeth : explaining their structure, use, formation, growth, and diseases, in two parts / by John Hunter ; with notes by Thomas Bell.

  • John Hunter
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatise on the natural history and diseases of the human teeth : explaining their structure, use, formation, growth, and diseases, in two parts / by John Hunter ; with notes by Thomas Bell. 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 best. A little lint or cotton soaked in laudanum is often applied with success ; and laudanum ought likewise to be taken internally to procure an interval of some case. Blisters are of service in most inflammations of these parts, whether they arise from a diseased tooth or not. They cannot be applied to the part, but they divert the pain and draw this stimulus to another part; they may be con- veniently placed either behind the ear or in the nape of the neck. These last-mentioned methods can only be considered as temporary means of relief, and such as only affect the inflammation. There- fore the tooth is still exposed to future attacks of the same disease.* * [In the foregoing passages there is much important and accurate observation evinced in the description of the symptoms either attending or succeeding inflam- mation in the teeth. There are, however, apparently no less than three distinct diseases confounded in this description. The first is the inflammation produced by the exposed pulp from decay of the tooth ; the second, suppuration of the pulp, which often takes place independently of exposure; and the third, the inflamma- tion and suppuration of the surrounding parts, which as frequently occur from the irritation produced by the existence of dead teeth or roots in the socket (as extraneous bodies) as from any other cause. Many of the remarks on the treatment of these affections are replete with sound sense, and have undoubtedly laid the foundation for the best modes of practice in use since that day. A few observations of a more detailed nature may not, however, be wholly useless. When the disease termed caries, or more properly gangrene, has only just commenced under the enamel, so as only to exhibit the appearance of a brown opake mark, there can be no doubt that the entire excision of the spot will much retard the progress of decay by removing one cause of irritation to the surrounding healthy bone; but if the decay has extended to any distance from the surface, the file must be used to such an extent, in order to remove the whole of the diseased portion, as to expose a considerable part of the bone to external irritants, and consequently will hasten rather than retard the mischief. The replacement of a decayed tooth after extraction, being first of all boiled to destroy its vitality, is recommended by Hunter only theoretically. An obvious and insurmountable objection exists to this operation, which is, that a dead ex- traneous body is thus forced into the alveolus, still sore from the operation, which must necessarily produce much irritation, and often suppuration, with all those severe symptoms which so often arise from dead roots, or from teeth whose con- nexion with the socket has been destroyed by a blow. The burning of the nerve is deserving of no better eulogy than the operation just mentioned. Hunter himself observes, with much naivete, that it must bo done to the very point of the fang, which is not a/ways possible. The truth is, that burning the pulp of a tooth even superficially, to be of service at all, must be done when the cauterizing wire is at a white heat, or it otherwise only pro- duces inflammation, and not the instantaneous destruction of the surface; but when the small size of the instrument, the distance which it must necessarily pass before it is brought into contact with the pulp, and the time which must elapse before it is applied, are considered, the impossibility of effectually em- ploying this remedy is obvious. The other remedies here alluded to, and indeed all other caustic applications, are generally productive of more injury than benefit, and exacerbate rather than diminish their inflammation and pain. Leeches, pur- gative medicines, and the local application of narcotics, or camphor, &c, will often be beneficial ; but, the pulp being once exposed, the relief which these afford can be but temporary, and the only remedy to be relied upon is the extrac- tion of the tooth.]
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