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OP DRAWING THE TEETH. 1-i
of the situation makes it very difficult to stop it. In general
it will be sufficient to stuff the socket with lint, or lint
dipped in the oil of turpentine, and to apply a compress of
lint or a piece of cork thicker than the bodies of the adjacent
Teeth, so that the Teeth in the opposite jaw may keep up a
pressure.
It has been advised to stuff into the socket some soft wax,
on a supposition that it would mould itself to the cavity,
and so stop the bleeding ; this perhaps may sometimes
answer better than the other method, and therefore should
be tried when that fails, (d)

(d) [Hemorrhage, after the extraction of a tooth, is seldom so severe
as to excite alarm, excepting when the lmemorrlmgic diathesis is present.
In these cases death has sometimes ensued. The following is a
summary of the principal cases I have found recorded of fatal or of
dangerous hemorrhage from the extraction of a tooth. Plater men-
tions the case of a man who died from this cause in 1555 ; Schenck has
recorded another instance, and M. Courtois gives the history of a third
case in the Dentiste Observatear, 1775. The patient was scrofulous, and
the bleeding came rather from the gums than the tooth. Coming down
to cases of more recent date, I find Snell mentions the death of an
elderly gentleman who had one loose tooth, a bicuspis, which was ex-
tracted ; luemorrhage ensued, and in spite of remedies he died on the
day after the operation. In the eighth volume of the ' Med. Chir.
Transactions,' is the history of a fatal case which occurred in the
practice of Mr. Blagden. The patient was a male, twenty-six years of
age ; the tooth from which the bleeding came, was a second molar of
the upper jaw. The actual cautery was applied, and the carotid artery
The hsemorrhagic diathesis was present, and the patient died on
tied.
the sixth day.
In the ' Medical Gazette' of 1841, Mi'. Robertson, of Edinburgh, has
given the history of a fatal case in a gentleman of middle age, after the
extraction of a loose wisdom tooth in the lower jaw. He was of a full
habit of body, the hemorrhagic diathesis was present, and he died on
the twenty-third day. The actual cautery was applied with only
temporary benefit, and the lip having been burnt in the operation, this
afterwards became a fresh source of bleeding ; so also in Mr. Blagden's
case the wound produced in tying the carotid artery, afterwards bled and
hastened the fatal result.
In a case related by Mr. Davenport in the ' Medical Gazette ' for 1862,