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328
her health recovered in some measure during the warm
weather of the succeeding spring and summer, but her rheu-
matic complaints returned on the accession of cold weather,
and she was confined to her room all that winter. Warm
weather again relieved her from her rheumatism. At the
commencement of the third winter, she was again attacked
with rheumatism, as in the two preceding winters, when the
doctor examined her teeth, and found that some of them
were in a state of disease ; these he ordered extracted, which
done, she immediately recovered from every symptom of
rheumatic complaint, and was free from them ever after.


SECTION VIII.
TIC DOULOUREUX.

This affection is now so generally known to be excited at
times by diseased teeth, that very few intelligent surgeons,
in cases of this kind, omit to notice the state of the teeth,
and if they find any of them diseased, they, in all cases, di-
rect their extraction. The following case of this kind was men-
tioned to me, some years ago, by the present professor of surge-
ry in Yale College, Dr. Nathan D. Smith: as I relate from mem-
ory, I have entirely forgotten the date of the occurrence of this
case. A young man, somewhere in the state ofVermont orNew
Hampshire was troubled with most acute and severe nervous
pains and twitchings in his face, chiefly along the infra-orbitar
nerves : this affection baffled the efforts of several respecta-
ble physicians for several months, I think four, when it was
perfectly cured by the extraction of a diseased tooth of the
under jaw. This case is remarkable for the sympathy be-


* Koecker, pages 279 to 281.
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