Page 63 - An essay on the diseasesof the jaws, and their treatment

DISEASES OF THE JAWS. 41 line. The swelling has a firm cartilaginous feel ; the glands ofthe neck appear free from disease^ and likewise the integument cover- ing the diseased bone, A portion of bone being felt in the hollow, a pair of dressing forceps were introduced, and the fragment ex- tracted. Since the removal the patient has experienced little or no pain: an occasional foetid discharge takes place. As the jaws will not admit of a wider separation than merely to admit a small finger, mastication is performed with much difficulty." See the " Lancet," vol. xi. p. 747. OF THE TREATMENT OF THE DISEASES OF THE JAWS. If the foregoing description of the maladies of the jaws and of their causes be correct, it requires but common sound judgment to decide on the proper treatment. It is necessary, however, to abandon all old prejudices and practices, resulting from an insuf- ficient acquaintance with the subject, and to prescribe those reme- dies which are as simple and rational as they are certain in their salutary efiects, and which are founded on a perfect acquaintance with the natural history and pathology of the parts afiected—the latter of which seems to have been insufficiently known, and for the most part not understood by those authors who have hitherto written on this disease, with whom I am acquainted. Although the principles of treatment of the several diseases described in the preceding pages, which are, in fact, but diffijrent forms and stages of the same malady, do not materially difier, still they admit of considerable variation in the extent to which they may require to be carried ; I have, therefore, thought it best to give a separate account of the curative means, which are in- dicated for each particular disease, in the same order as I have described the diseases themselves; and I shall now proceed to give the necessary directions, and lay down the rules for that curative plan, which, under my experience, has seldom failed to effect a perfect cure, even in such cases as have advanced to a considerable extent.* • The scope and object of this essay do not, of course, admit of any descrip-