Page 18 - An essay on the diseasesof the jaws, and their treatment

xiv EDITOR'S PREFACE. racter of such tumours being derived from constitutional causes. Subsequently, however, several treatises of a more comprehensive character have appeared. In 1836 was published Mr. Liston's very valuable paper, " On the Tumours of the Mouth and Jaws," in the "Medico- Chirurgical Transactions;" in 1844 Dr. O'Shaughnessey brought out, at Calcutta, his " Essay on the Diseases of the Jaws;" and in 1842 was produced Mr. Compton's successful Jacksonian Prize-Essay, " On the Injuries and Diseases of the Maxillary Bones." Dr. O'Shaugh- nessey's work has hardly any pretensions to be more than a manual to the operation of amputation of the jaws, and, with the single exception of the remark that the fibro- cartilaginous tumours do not appear to originate so fre- quently from carious teeth, in India as in this country, it leaves the " unassignable causes" exactly as it found them. The chief merit of Mr. Compton's Essay consists in its being an elaborate compilation of the various notices these affections have received from surgical writers ; and, as such, it records many important facts. But Mr. Liston's paper is one of a very different character. In that trea- tise the author throws much light on the local causes of the diseases of the maxiUse, and, while contending that the surgical operations for the extirpation of the tumours of these parts are best performed by incisions through the sound tissues beyond the limits of the disease, he