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118 DENTAL MEDICINE.

cause inflammation by a process different from that of chemical
irritants. The inflammatory action of mercury and arsenious
acid is developed only after the poison has entered the circulation,
and a certain amount has been received by the stomach, when
active inflammation of the mouth with salivation (mercurial
stomatitis) supervenes, if the agent is mercury, or active gastric
hyperemia with vomiting, if the agent is arsenic. There is a
specific poisonous action brought about by such irritants, on ac-
count of the tissues of the mouth and stomach being more sensi-
tive to the influence of these mineral poisons. The cause of
this peculiar susceptibility is as yet obscure.
Micro-organisms are capable of exciting inflammation by direct
contact with tissues, when the latter are exposed by injury.
Many of these low forms of life are indestructible by the
most extreme heat and cold, and also by the strongest chemical
agents. And whenever the oxygen is prevented from entering a
wound these micro-organisms generate with great rapidity, and
are nourished by the fluids and granulating surfaces which sur-
round them. The chemical and vital changes which these ani-
mal materials undergo bring about putrefaction through the
agency of fermentation, and certain poisonous combinations are
thus formed. These micro-organisms, therefore, acting as a
poison, decompose the materials generated for repair, and thus
prevent the constructive process; they also act as a putrefactive
ferment, producing septic poisons destructive in their action. It
has been definitely determined that these organisms, although
present in every destructive inflammation, "do not occur in the
blood nor in the tissues of the healthy living body of man or of
the lower animals." Diminished vitality, whatever may be the
cause, favors the invasion and development of micro-organisms
in the form of parasites.
While some of the common parasites cause injurious effects
by inciting inflammation in tissues and organs, they only act as
foreign bodies, while the microscopic fungi and their germs, acting
as invisible particles of organized matter, cause the greatest in-
jury. If they are protected from the influence of oxvgen, these
micro-organisms germinate very rapidly, and derive their suste-