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Management of the Teeth
method, accuracy of discriptive and professional diction, as if
we -were writing solely for professional readers. Yet, as it
will be necessary to adopt some order, we shall take up the
subject at early infancy, and follow it up progressively to old
age, with as much precision as the nature of it, and our pro-
posed manner of treating it, will admit. This order, though
objectionable in some respects, is the most natural one that
we can adopt; and though the appearances which we de-
scribe may not be exhibited in every diseased mouth; and if
they be so, are not exhibited at the exact period which we
assign to them, in our order of description, yet, in a majority
of mouths, they will obtain.
Another reason justifying us in not being methodical in our
aiscrifrtlbii of diseases, is the circumstance, that they have
been fully treated of in other parts of the work.
Well then, to proceed to our subject, let us place before ufi
kn infant 4 or 5 months old and examine its mouth attentively;
we find its jaws regularly formed, their arches evenly turned;
their opposite surfaces or edges smooth and uniform ; the
arch of the upper jaw projecting a little over and forward of
k he lower one, and the whole covered with a beautiful, smooth,
firm yet elastic and slightly florid substance, called the gum ;
the pressure of the finger does not give pain ; there is no un-
natural heat ; the saliva is slightly viscid and not over abund-
ant ; there is no swelling, discoloration, roughness, blotch or
simple it looks as if its pristine purity had not been marred
;
by either the extremes of heat or cold, by sweets or acids, by
hot and stimulating ingredients and spices, by ruinous alcho-
holic potions, by any drugs, or by any aliments, save what
simple unsophisticated nature designed for it: in a word it
has had nothing but the grateful nourishment afforded by its
mother : this is the mouth of a child in a healthy state.
Let us look upon it often, and with a discriminating eye, in
order that we may become familiar with its appearance, and
'thereby be enabled to detect the approach of disease ; let us
not look upon it with an "unconscious gaze,'' or with the