Page 140 - My FlipBook

138 DENTAL MEDICINE.
ing or withdrawing nervous action from the inflamed part.
Diuretics and diaphoretics are useful for promoting elimination
of toxic substances through the kidneys. Diffusible stimulants
are useful for heart failure, such as brandy, whiskey, and cognac.
The temperature can be reduced by sponging the surface of the
body with tepid water, or by the use of the warm bath.
Diet.—The diet is of great importance in all forms of inflam-
mation. Food of the most nutritious character and of a form
easily digested is very necessary. Milk, pure, or mixed with lime
water, peptonized or sterilized, or in the form of gruel, is the
most valuable of all liquid foods ; alcohol may be given with
it in the form of wine whey. Meat broths are nutritious and
digestible, and pure beef juice is very reliable. When food can-
not be taken by the stomach, enemata of beef broths, and some
of the various peptonized forms of meat, may be given by the
rectum. A few drops of laudanum with the enema will assist
in retaining food thus given. After the fever and inflammation
subside, the solid forms of food may be given more freely.
Tonics, such as iron, calisaya bark and the phosphites, are then
indicated to improve the appetite and favor repair.
Ulceration is a passive process, and results from the molec-
ular death caused by insufficient blood supply, insufficient nerv-
ous influence, impure quality of blood, or the presence of blood
poison. Ulceration is very closely associated with inflamma-
tion, although the former may be independent of the latter, and
consists of a progressive softening and disintegration of successive
layers of the affected tissue. Ulceration generally begins in a
process of chronic inflammation, and in such a manner that the
death of the tissues only occurs when the tissues themselves have
undergone cellular infiltration in consequence of the inflamma-
tory changes. The loss of the integument leaves a red, raw
surface, which bleeds ea-sily, and which is covered with a tena-
cious, slimy matter. Very soon irregular cavities are formed in
this surface, separated by red elevations with ragged edges. A
thin, serous, bloody discharge exudes, with severe pain of a
gnawing character. The ulcer then formed, and which has
been defined as " a wound surface having no tendency to heal,"