Page 298 - My FlipBook

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296

TOBACCO.

This article, as well as mercury, perhaps, is used or taken
by as many different individuals as any other active or medi-
cal substance whatever. That under some states of the con-
stitution it exerts an injurious influence upon the stomach
and digestive organs, there cannot be a doubt.
But whether
it directly injures the teeth or not, has been disputed. I
will give the opinions of a few authors upon this
subject.
Fauchard remarks
*"The smoking of tobacco is also very hurtful to the teeth;
it makes them black and ugly, and besides, if the precaution
is not taken to cover the end of the pipe, the rubbing which
it makes against the teeth never
fails, in the using of it, by
slow degrees to uncover their sensible
parts. Experience
proves this fact, and to which their has not been paid ordina-
ry attention.
it heats
This smoking produces bad effects ;
the mouth, and a stream of cold
air coming immediately in
contact with the teeth, these two extremes might give occa-
sion to the fixation of some humour in the tooth also, in the
; which
gums, or in some one of their neighbouring parts
might occasion very inconvenient pains and defluxions, and
caries also, which is the most mischievous of all accidents."
It is not my intention to prohibit the use of tobacco en-
tirely.
I know that the teeth are blackened by smoking, if
great care be not taken to keep them
clean, and to rinse
the mouth often
; but I know also that the smoking of tobacco
may contribute to the preservation of the teeth, by procuring
the evacuation of superabundant humours, which might by

Fauchard, pages, 68, 69, 70.