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To the Animal Economy. 181

EFFECTS OP DISEASED TEETH GUMS AND SOCKETS
UPON THE CONSTITUTION.
It is a law of the animal economy, that when any part of.
the system is diseased, the whole system becomes sympatheti-
cally affected, and suffers in proportion to the extent of the
local malady, modified by its seat, the constitution and the
state of the general system. Hence, the disease of the. teeth
and their appendages must affect the constitution, and from
their situation and the intimate connexion existing between
the nerves of the teeth and of the general system, by means of
the fifth pair and great sympathetic nerve, the constitution
must sometimes suffer severely, as a thousand facts constantly
occurring amply prove.
The local affections caused by diseased teeth, gum and
sockets, are sympathetic pains in those parts most intimately
connected with them, as pains in the face, inflamed eyes, ear
ache, nervous head ache, tic-doloureux, defective smell and
taste, and diseases of the jaw bones : most of these are at
once explained by referring to the fifth pair of nerves, which
is the grand medium of sensation to the face and head.
(See page 17.)
There can also be no doubt but that diseases in the
£hese people are sai.d to blacken the teeth from an idea they entertain,
that men ought not to have white teeth like brutes. The Toquinese
and Siamese also employ every art for this purpose.
In some of the East India Islands, the people gild the two front in-
cisores of the upper jaw, and blacken the adjoining teeth. In New Zee-
land and some other Islands m the Pacific, a golden tooth is an ensign
of royalty.
Some savage tribes have fanciful notions as to the shape of the teeth.
The Abyssinian negroes file off the corners, so as to make them spear
pointed. The Mallay Indians cut groves across the incisores of the-
upper jaw.
The savages on the northwest coast of America, have a whimsical
pustom with respect to the mouth. These people appear at first sight
to have two mouths, which effect is produced in this manner. They
make an incision through the upper lip, parrallel with the mouth, and
when the wound has healed, they adjust a shell to the artificial mouth,
which is cut to resemble a row of teeth.