Page 34 - An essay on the diseasesof the jaws, and their treatment

12 AN ESSAY ON THE — tions which are sympathetically excited by diseases of distant parts* • The complicated and important sjmapathies of the teeth and their contiguous parts, are universally recognised in the infant, whose delicate frame is so sus- ceptible of that " undue action," (to use the words of Dr. Marshall Hall,) " which takes place in the fangs and sockets of the teeth in their whole extent, with their connexions, vascular, nervous, and membranous ; the focus of which is not, as is generally imagined, the nerves of the mere gums, seated over the prominent parts of the teeth, but the nerves which may be emphatically termed the nerves of the teeth themselves—the nerves which enter into the very fangs and substancs of the teeth." — ("Lancet," May, 1844.) This action is, however, not confined to infant age, nor is it only excited by dentition, whether of the deciduous or per- manent teeth, for the vascular, nervous, and membranous connexions of the teeth remain throughout life unimpaired. Dr. Ashburner, in his work entitled " Dentition and some Coincident Disor- ders," has, with a masterly hand, laid open the complex pathology of dentition, and exhibited the extensive influence of the anormal growth of the teeth, in the production of many very serious affections both local and remote. But a much more common source of morbid action on the part of the teeth is furnished by their diseases. No medical writer that I am acquainted with, has more fully de- veloped this subject than Dr. Kush, in his " Medical Inquiries." " When we consider," says this eminent authority, " how often the teeth are decayed, and how intimate the connexion of the mouth is with the whole system, I am disposed to believe they are often unsuspected causes of general and particularly of ner- vous diseases. When we add to the list of those diseases the morbid effects of the acrid and putrid matters which are sometimes discharged from carious teeth, or from ulcers in the gums created by them, also the influence which both have in preventing perfect mastication, and the connexion of that animal function with good health, I cannot help thinking that our success in the treatment of all chronic diseases would be very much promoted by directing our inquiries into the state of the teeth in sick people, and by advising their extraction in every case in which they are decayed. It is not necessary that they should be attended with pain, in order to produce diseases, for splinters, tumours, and other irritants often bring on diseases, and death, when they give no pain, and are unsuspected as causes of them." " The teeth," observes Mr. Lawrence, in one of his clinical lectures, " very often become a source of great irritation to the bone in which they are implanted, and are capable of exciting various painful sensations of a very distressing kind in the jaws and neighbouring parts ; and you would hardly be aware at first how seriously the health of an individual may be affected, in consequence of a cause beginning in one small part of the body such as this." (" Medical Gazette," 1830, p. 456.) " From the presence of carious teeth or de- cayed portions of teeth," writes Mr. Listen, " many evils both local and general ensue, besides inflammation and abscess. They are frequently the cause—and the sole cause—of violent and continued headaches ; of glandular swellings in the neck, terminating in or combined with abscess ; of inflammation and enlargement of the tonsils, either chronic or acute ; of ulcerations of the tongue or lips, often assuming a malignant action from continued irritation ; of painful feelings in the face, tic-douloureux, pains in the tongue, jaws, &c.; of disordered stomach, from affection of the nerves, or from imperfect mastication, and of continued constitu- tional irritation, which may give rise to serious diseases." — (" Elements of Sur- gery," p. 417.)