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276 THE MICRO-ORGANISMS OF THE HUMAN MOUTH.

to the operation the mouth should he kept as free from micro-
organisms as possil)le hv a frequent use of an antiseptic wash.
Leynseele [Bnlkt. (Jc hi societe de Gand, 1885) descrihos a case
of meningo-encephahtis resulting from the attempted extraction
of a tooth. The lower jaw had heen fractured at the point of
extraction; pus burrowed its way along the hone, laying it bare.
From this point it ascended the inner side of the ramus of the
jaw as far as the base of the skull, and entered the ci:anialcayity
through the foramen ovale, spinosum, and rotundum, where,
spreading along the base of the brain, it became tbe cause of
meningo-encephalitis (Wedl).
Of late years both dentists and physicians have paid particu-
lar attention to this fruitful source of most dangerous infections.
The cases of fatal infectious diseases proceeding from diseased
teeth are now no longer exceptional ; not, I think, because they
occur more frecpiently at present, but because the great influ-
ence of the condition of tije mouth upon the general health was
formerly not appreciated, and cases of this kind were not traced
back to their proper source.*
Not only has a large number of pathogenic micro-organisms
been discovered and described, hut reports have also been made
concerning many different cases of general diseases proceeding
from the teeth. Zakharevitsch ^^ relates the cases of two healthy,
vigorous physicians who died, the one on the sixth, the other on
the tenth day after the extraction of the left lower second
molar. In one case, osteomyelitis supervened ; in the other,
periostitis and osteitis, with uncommonly severe symptoms.
The infection was from the beginning of a septic nature, which,
according to the reporter, was due to tlie use of infected instru-
ments.
Several similar cases have been cited by Baume.^*^^ A physi-
cian had made an unsuccessful attempt to extract the decayed
left superior first molar of a student, twenty-four years of age.
On the following day a moderate swelling of the affected locality
set in
; the pericementitis soon extended to the periosteum oip
* A case illustrating this fact was brought to my notice some time since. In a
workman found dead, the autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a meningitis
directly traceable to an abscessed tooth.