Page 301 - My FlipBook
P. 301
:
299
derstanding causes and effects of diseases ; considers disputes
respecting the modus operandi of the causes of disease to be,
to say the least, unprofitable. In the subsequent chapter it
will be ;ny object to lay before the reader a few plain and
undeniable facts which unequivocally establish the important
principle, that the diseases of the teeth, the gums, and maxil-
lar organs, exert a powerful and extensive sympathy with the
rest of the system.
The diseases which I shall mention as produced by dis-
eased teeth, gums, maxillar organs, &c. are the following
Phthisis Pulmonalis.
Perhaps many persons may start at seeing this set down
as ever being caused by diseased teeth, and consider its having
a place here, as arising from the caprice or fancy of the writer,
but which cannot be placed here either by facts or sound
reasoning. Phthisis pulmonalis, the scourge of the human
family, the destroyer of our race, the baneful siroc, whose
course is marked by its destructive energies, that spares nei-
ther age nor sex, enumerates in the number of its causes, a
diseased state of the teeth. If this is so, why are not these
diseases known by the practitioners of medicine, and made
an object of their especial attention ? I answer, because in
this country they form no part of the education of the stu-
dent of medicine preparatory to his entering upon/ the prac-
tice of his profession ; and after that period, either from the
multiplicity of their engagements, or from a want of indus-
try or enterprize, few of them ever enter upon those untrod-
den fields of disease, or their causes which had never been
hinted to them, either by their preceptors or the authors they
read.
299
derstanding causes and effects of diseases ; considers disputes
respecting the modus operandi of the causes of disease to be,
to say the least, unprofitable. In the subsequent chapter it
will be ;ny object to lay before the reader a few plain and
undeniable facts which unequivocally establish the important
principle, that the diseases of the teeth, the gums, and maxil-
lar organs, exert a powerful and extensive sympathy with the
rest of the system.
The diseases which I shall mention as produced by dis-
eased teeth, gums, maxillar organs, &c. are the following
Phthisis Pulmonalis.
Perhaps many persons may start at seeing this set down
as ever being caused by diseased teeth, and consider its having
a place here, as arising from the caprice or fancy of the writer,
but which cannot be placed here either by facts or sound
reasoning. Phthisis pulmonalis, the scourge of the human
family, the destroyer of our race, the baneful siroc, whose
course is marked by its destructive energies, that spares nei-
ther age nor sex, enumerates in the number of its causes, a
diseased state of the teeth. If this is so, why are not these
diseases known by the practitioners of medicine, and made
an object of their especial attention ? I answer, because in
this country they form no part of the education of the stu-
dent of medicine preparatory to his entering upon/ the prac-
tice of his profession ; and after that period, either from the
multiplicity of their engagements, or from a want of indus-
try or enterprize, few of them ever enter upon those untrod-
den fields of disease, or their causes which had never been
hinted to them, either by their preceptors or the authors they
read.
