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eases. When we add to the list of these diseases, the mor-
bid effects of the acrid and putrid matters which are some-
times discharged from carious teeth, or from ulcers in

the gums created by them, also the influence which both
have in preventing perfect mastication and the connexion of
that animal function with good health, I cannot help thinking
that our success in the treatment of all chronic
diseases
would be very much promoted by directing our inquiries
into the state of the teeth in sick people, and by advising
their extraction in every case in which they are decayed.
It is not necessaiy that they should be attended with pain in
order to produce diseases, for splinters, tumours and other
irritants before mentioned, often bring on diseases and
death, when they give no pain, and are unsuspected
as
causes of them. This transition of sensation and motion to
parts remote from the place where impressions are made, ap-
pears in many instances, and seems to depend upon an origi-
nal law of the animal economy."
There are so many causes of phthisis, that we are often
unable to determine, in each case, what is the precise one
;
and the only positive proof is, the cure of the disease upon
the removal of the supposed cause
; and if we suspect a dis-
eased state of the teeth to be the cause, and, upon having them
extracted or cured of disease, the phthisical affection
is
cured, it is then often demonstrated that the teeth were the
exciting cause. Dr. Rush quotes from a French writer, a
case of phthisis cured by the extraction of some diseased
teeth ; this is positive proof. We must also remember that
phthisis, excited by whatever cause, is cured by the removal
of that cause only in its early stage, for after the disease has
proceeded so far as to disorganize the lungs, it is probably
never cured ; the removal of its early cause then will have
no effect. The following case occurred in my practice,