Page 30 - An essay on the diseasesof the jaws, and their treatment

8 AN ESSAY ON THE Tlic lips of the external wound were brought together by three gold needles, and the twisted suture. " The first day after the operation, the patient referred her pain to the throat, rather than to the parts which had been ope- rated upon. She had severe head-ache, which was attributed in part to the shock given to the head by the strokes of the mallet, and to the division of the dental nerves. The needles were re- moved on the fifth day. On the fifteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth, some portions of exfoliated bone were detached. On the nineteenth, the lips could be closed for the first time. By the twenty-third, all tumefaction had subsided, the voice was improved, the catamenia, which had been long absent, had re-appeared, and the other functions were in a natural state. On the thirtieth, the sole remaining tooth was removed, as it interfered with mastica- tion. Five days later she left the hospital in good health. The lips fell in a little, especially the lower, but the deformity was very slight. The voice, which had not quite recovered itself, was daily improving. " Dr. Regnoli concludes, that though the disease should return, the operation was still proper and necessary. Without it, he considers that death would have been inevitable, and he urges in its favour,—that it incurred but little danger—that the practice of Dupuytren and Vacca support it—and that the disease does not always return." From the description of the above case, I have no hesitation In positively asserting, that the mere extraction of all dead roots, and such teeth as were loose, or suffering from complicated caries, would have been better calculated to effect an expeditious and radical cure, than the above extremely painful and destructive treatment. To the same principle may also be fairly ascribed, the first In- troduction of the formidable operation of amputating a part, and sometimes even the whole of the affected jaw. This treatment, however, although creditable to Its Ingenious Inventor, and justly conferring the greatest honour, not only upon him, but also upon every one who has skilfully performed so difficult an operation, is still only applicable to those cases In which the disease afiects the