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reality) appeared to advance or recede, to or from convales-
cence.*
About this time, change of situation was suggested, and
in conclusion, consigned the case to my inspection, in Febru-
ary, 1824.
I soon discovered, by the mode herein recommended, th*
immediate seat of my little interesting patient's complaint to
be in the second bicuspis, or small grinding-tooth, in the left
side of the upper jaw, a very small portion of which alone
was visible. The disease generated by pressure of the neigh-
bouring teeth, having devastated the tooth itself, in propor-
tion as the accompanying paroxysms and the remedies pro-
posed, had, to a certain extent, been 'active in the discompo-
sure of her health and comfort.
The aborigine diminutive tooth, still more diminished by
disease, having been declared neither useful nor ornamental,
was quietly and gently (as well with regard to the sufferings
of the patient, as to prevent the possibility of fracture) ren-
dered incapable of causing further calamity to the fair owner,
by removal. On examination, after extraction, the perios-
teum, or vascular membrane investing the root, appeared at
the extremity swollen to the size of a small pea, which, on
being punctured, sent forth on the lancet a quantity of fluid
of the colour and consistency of cream, occasioning at once
the confirmatory conclusion, that could the pain attendant on
the inflammatory action, which had never ceased, and was
then going on in this small, but largely excitable substance of

* All which may be easily conceived, when it is recollected, that the
great sympathetic nerve forms a plexus, or combination with the fifth and
sixth pairs, and is thus, through connecting consequence with the trigeme-
nus, not only in complete association with the head, heart, and stomach,
but also with the teeth, eyes, and ears.