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saliva, as the root of the peteveria alliacea, used in the West-
Indies, called the Guinea-hen weed, from the fondness of
that bird for it. Also the bulbs of most aliaceous plants ; the
seselis vulgare, common hartwort, or laserpitium silex Lin.
which has long been celebrated as a sialagogue and remedy
for the tooth-ache.* Camphor is also often of great use.
Errhines are often used with success. All the essential oils are
put on little pieces of cotton, and introduced into the cavity
of the tooth. Anodynes and narcotics are occasionally used
in treating diseased teeth, as opium, henbane, the leaves of
the datura stramonium, (thorn apple plant,) tobacco in extract,
tincture, or fumigation. Electricity and magnetism are at
times used in diseases of the teeth, and recommended by
some as being very useful. Mr. Charles Bew mentions a
case, where a quack applied the fumigation of henbane seeds
to draw worms from inflamed teeth, supposed to create the
inflammation.!

section v.

OF CAUSTICS.

Caustics are occasionally used in the course of our oper-
tions upon the teeth, &c. as with a view of destroying the
nerves of the teeth, and to cure or remove tumours of the
oum s, and to relieve their irritability in scorbutic affections,
cancrum oris, &c. Those commonly used are the kali pu-
rum, (caustic potash,) the nitric and vitriolic acids, and the
lunar caustic (argentum nitratum.) Of the use of the latter,

t Bew on the teeth, page 65.
* See Good, vol. I, page 29.