Page 268 - My FlipBook

•266
the opposite side of the face, and at this point alone, the
thinness of the bony parieties of the antrum was perceptible.
The patient spoke and breathed with great difficulty ; he
slept uneasily, and his mastication was painful, the case was
at first supposed by Dubois, Sabatier, Palletan and Boyer, to
be a fungus of the antrum, and an operation was considered
advisable.
In proceeding to this measure the first thing that attracted
the notice of Dubois, was a sort of fluctuation in the situa-
tion of the gum, behind the upper lip ; a circumstance which
led him to give up the idea of the case being a fungus,
though he expected that on making an opening, merely a
small quantity of ichorous matter would escape, affording no
kind of information. In this place however, he determined
on making an incison, along the alveolary process, whereby
a large quantity of a glutinous substance, like lymph, or what
is found in cases of ranula was discharged. A probe was
now introduced, with which Dubois could feel a cavity equal
in extent to the forepart of the tumour ; and in moving the
instrument about, with a view of learning whether any fun-
gus was present, it struck against a hard substance, which
felt like one of the incisor teeth, near the opening that had
been made. Five days after this operation, Dubois extrac-
ted two incisors and one grinder, and then removed the cor-
responding part of the alveolary process. As the haemorrhage
was profuse, the wound was now filled with dressings, which
in two days came away, and enabled Dubois to see with fa-
cility all the interior of the cavity. At its upper part he
perceived a white speck, which he suppo-ed was pus, but on
touching it with a probe, it turned out to be a tooth, which
was then extracted, in doing which, some fogce was requisite.
The rest of the treatment merely consisted in injecting lotions
into the cavity, and applying common dressings. In about six