Page 13 - An essay on the diseasesof the jaws, and their treatment

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. The publication of tlie present Essay, has, for various reasons, been considerably delayed, and it is not without some anxiety that I at length venture to offer it to pub- He notice. I am well aware of the difficulties with which the foreigner has to contend in any country, as a writer, more especially when his opinions may be supposed to aim at novelty or originality ; and, notwithstanding the flattering notices which my " Principles of Dental Sur- gery" received from most of the guardians of the healing art—the medical and surgical journalists of this country —I am not the less diffident in my present attempt, as it is my most earnest wish to retain their good opinion, by making myself useful to humanity and the profession, as far as my feeble powers will permit. In pubhshing this Essay, I may be accused of a presumptuous attempt to treat of a subject which does not belong to my particular province ; this, I trust, how- ever, will be deemed erroneous, when it is considered that, although in their later and more complicated stages the maladies of the jaws require the united aid of general surgery and medicine, they strictly, in their earlier forms, belong to the practice of dentistry, and never would re- quire the assistance of the former, if the latter were judi- ciously afforded at the proper period. There is, moreover, considerable difficulty in deciding at what period the exclusive treatment of the teeth be- comes insufficient, and the time when the assistance of