Page 74 - My FlipBook

44 : HISTORY OF DENTAL SUEGERY ; ;

vulsions." When all of tliese remedies fail, he says "there is not the least
danger to be feared in using a sharp knife and cutting through the gums until
the tooth is reached, and this incision should be made in the shape of a
cross."
Fauchard gives the following description of an operation on the jaw of a
woman
"In 1711 a poor woman, fifty-five years of age, affected with scurvy, went to
the hospital and remained there a month under treatment. She was dis-
missed without being completely healed. This induced her to call upon me
some time later. 1 made a careful examination of her mouth and discovered
two very conspicuous fistulous openings which proceeded from the interior of
the mouth to a place below the chin. I discovered that a large portion of the
jaw bone was carious. This led me to remove several of her molars which
were loose. I also removed three pieces of exfoliated bone, of which the
larger portion was an inch and a half in length and an inch in width. I
also removed all putrified flesh and applied a dressing of dried peruvian balsam,
which was twice a day injected into the fistulous opening. After twent\^-
eight days she was dismissed thoroughly cured."'
He comments upon this case by saying that he "never could have served
this poor woman properly or diminished her suffering without devoting his
full energy and attention to her case."
After devoting several hundred pages to the relation and description in
individual cases of abscesses, and commenting thereon, he concludes the
first part of his book witli this observation:
"It is not sufficient that this treatise has taught how the teeth originated
how they grew : how tliey are succeeded by new ones ; what their strength is
from what causes they sufler and are destroyed; which is of the most service
to preserve them and in how many ways, by means of art, their malformations
may be corrected, and broken down ones healed. I must also mention certain
conditions which afl'ect diagnosis and prognosis, which may be made by a
careful examination of the teetli and which may reveal that many diseases
io which the human body i? liable may be better understood.
"When Hippocrates, Galenus, Avicenna, Aetius, Iiiverius, Lommius Gor-
donius and oth.er distinguished writers mention the indications of certain
febrile diseases, they carefully observe not only the signs which are externally
visible in the eyes, the temple, the ears, tlie nose, the tongue and the lips, but
they also look to the signs which different colors of the teeth expose to view.
Frequently in such cases the color of the teeth indicated the extent of tlie