Page 83 - An essay on the diseasesof the jaws, and their treatment

DISEASES OF THE JAWS. 61 well, though it will be tedious, and in all probability more exfo- liation of bone will take place both in the ear and in the orbit, or rather perhaps in the malar bone." [This has taten place, and several portions of exfoliated bones are in my possession.] " His general health is the chief thing to be attended to, and twenty grains of bark with ten grains of soda, are to be given occasionally i twice a day ; a small dose of calomel and rhubarb is also to be given once in ten days or a fortnight, and the ear is to be syringed every day with warm water." " Samuel Patrick." *' Bartlett's Buildings, Aug. 17, 1817." Subsequently to that period several other eminent physicians and surgeons had been consulted, and the disease was unanimously considered to be of a scrofulous nature and treated accordingly. Change of air, residence at the sea-side, travelling in the interior of England and France, and every means which medicine and parental affection could supply were resorted to by the father with the hope of seeing his son once more restored to health. No attention had been paid to the state of his teeth at any pe- riod of the disease, and some of his surgical attendants in the country had positively forbidden any recourse to the dental art, although nature had distinctly called for its assistance, by thrust- ing out some teeth and carious parts of the sockets of its own accord. No doubt this advice was founded on the principles that no benefit could be obtained from dental surgery, and that it was consequently much better to leave the local disease entirely to the sanative efforts of nature, than to frustrate these efforts by an im- proper treatment of the teeth. For my own part, however, I do not hesitate positively to assert, that by a judicious dental treat- ment a perfect cure could not have failed to be efiected at that time, or at any subsequent period. In April, 1845, when I first saw the patient, then about twenty years of age, a considerable sarcomatous swelling originating from^ the lower part of the inner plate of the ramus of the left side of the inferior jaw, extended downwards imder the chin, and up- wards over the left cheek, causing a distortion of the lips, nose,