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and local remedies were prescribed by Dr. M'Clcllan.
At
the expiration of five or six days
I again received a visit
from him, when a few slight operations were performed, and
in a very short time
his mouth became perfectly healthy,
with the exception of the diseased antrum, which continued
rapidly improving.
Under this treatment the health of the
patient improved.
For a short time nature seemed willing
to rally the almost exhausted powers of life, but the exces*
sively warm weather, joined to the previously extreme de-
bility, and the harassing symptoms of his malady, urged the
disease to a
fatal crisis, and he died in July after I saw
him.
It was the confirmed belief of the patient, that by an early
attention to the
disease of his antrum and teeth, the
ac-
cession of phthisis, would have been prevented
; and from
this opinion I think few can reasonably dissent.
I think we may safely
infer, although diseased teeth do
not in every instance excite general diseases of the system
and of the lungs, still like an
insidious enemy, they are ever
ready to unite with or exasperate other causes, so as to finally
undermine the powers of the system.
I have dwelt at con-
siderable length upon this subject, and would earnestly solicit
the attention of the Medical Faculty in general, to a critical
inquiry into the state of the teeth in all cases of pulmonary
affections, and there is hardly a doubt but what their en-
quiries would eventuate in the general conclusion, that a dis-
eased state of the teeth and gums do very frequently excite
pulmonary affections, especially in persons predisposed to
them, and always aggravate these complaints, let them be
excited by whatever cause they may.