Page 297 - My FlipBook

THE EIGHTEEXril CENTIR)- 27.")

or of cloves. The tooth nuist he k-t't in this st;itr for souk- months, t;ikin<'
care to renew the cotton-wooL It is necessary to ohserve that in beginning
to put in the cotton-wool this should he clone with lightness and without
pressing it down much, so that if pus should gather again it ma\ In- ahk-
to make its wa\- througii tin- cotton-wool, the principal ohjict of this
being to hinder the penetrating of alimentar\ substances into the tooth,
which would be the cause of further deca\ If the cotton were pressed
.
into the tooth from the beginning, the pus, not being able to find an exit,
would accumulate, and might cause much pain, if the nervous parts
of the tooth were not yet dried up or destro\ed. The same thing
might happen after the application of a lead stopping, and one would be
obliged to remo\e it and let considerable time pass before putting it in
again."
Further on the author sa\ s that while the trepanning of incisors or
canines almost alwa\s causes the pain to cease, by opening up an exit
to the morbid matter retained within the cavity of such teeth, the same
is not the case with the molars, these having several roots and several
cavities, of great variety, which lend themselves but little to accurate
trepanning. "Hemard," he adds, "judges it necessar\- to extract these
teeth, or at least to break off the crown (Ics Jfchapeller), in order to give
exit to the corrupt matter that is closed up in the cavity; this sometimes
causes the pain to cease. He (Hemard) says that he has seen many
abscesses in the interior of teeth, which were not externally decayed, and
that after having broken off the crown he iound within the cavit\' a
corrupt matter of an insupportable smell."
Relative to such cases, Fauchard sa\s that, besides the teeth, also the
"
surrounding parts suffer and are imperilled by these conditions. Ihe
greater part of the violent fluxions deriving therefrom often terminate in
abscesses and fistulae of the gums and of the surrounding parts, and
sometimes with considerable and dangerous decay of the bone, as I have
related in some of m\" observations."
One sees that Fauchard was clinically very well acquainted with the
grave forms of pulpitis and their possible consequences, although ignoring
the true nature of this process, which has onl\- been studied and illustrated
much more recentlw
Chapter XL (page 177) treats of dental tartar, of its cause, of the harm-
ful effects it produces, and of the prophylaxis and therapy relating thereto.
Three illustrations which are added to this chapter represent the dif-
ferent aspects of a mass of tartar of exceptional si/e formed around the
body of a lower molar. The surgeon Bassuel, a friend of the author,
had removed this mass of tartar, together with the entire molar, from the
jaw of an old woman. The mass itself was almost the size of a hen's
egg, the superficies being very irregular; it rendered mastication altogether