Page 314 - My FlipBook

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bear remarking, in conclusion, that every practitioner of med-
icine, when prescribing for dyspeptic patients, ought to at-
tend to the state of their teeth and gums, and if they are not
in a state of health to have them made so by judicious dental
operations.
Another remark we might make, and which was obligingly
suggested to me by Dr. Chapman, the highly intelligent pro-
fessor of the theory and practice of medicine, in the University
of Philadelphia, which clearly proves the influence of disease
in the mouth upon the stomach is, that dentition in infants, in a
great majority of cases, excites diseased action in the stomach
and bowels, manifested by the loss of appetite, nausea,
and diarrhoea ; and it is a fact notorious to the medical faculty,
that the occurrence of dentition is apt to aggravate all other
complaints which may be present, and especially those of the
stomach and bowels of children so prevalent in the summer
months, and so certain and well assured are they of this,
that even the probability of dentition occurring during the
prevalence of summer complaints, is ever productive of
alarm, as they know that they will be aggravated, and the
lives of their little patients placed in the greatest jeopardy.
The following case of dyspepsia, produced by a diseased
state of the teeth and gums, is taken from the public lectures
of the present professor of the theory and practice of med-
icine in the University of Pennsylvania, Nathaniel Chap-
man. M. D.
Some years since a lady came from a distant part of the
country to this city in pursuit of medical aid, and placed her-
self under the care of Dr. Chapman. He found her labpur-
ing under every symptom of obstinate dyspepsia, by which
her health and strength were greatly impaired. His correct
and well-known acumen in the pathology of disease imme-