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301 ALVEOLAR ABSCESS.

much difficulty is often experienced from a want of
free egress for the secretion : while, in the superior
teeth, the pus may frequently escape through the
tooth by gravitation ; this force, in the inferior jaw.
increases the difficulty. The sac being usually

formed on the point of a root, the secretion then
rests at the bottom of the socket, and is frequently

pent up there till it finds an outlet through the gum.
somewhere between the point of the root and the
neck of the tooth. It is, in many instances, very
difficult to get an ope nng as low down as the point
of the root, since the buccal attachment to the gum
is usually quite above that point, particularly in the
case of the molars and second bicuspids. Very sel-
dom, if ever, can a secreting sac on the root of an
inferior tooth be destroyed by treatment applied

through the canal of the root. Some are accustomed
to make a vertical incision of the sum, as low as the
point of the root, and perforate the alveolus, and
treat through this channel, as already described.
Owing to the disadvantage above mentioned, much
more energetic treatment is necessary to attain suc-
cess with an abscess of the inferior than with that
of the superior teeth.
In the great majority of cases, where one half or
more of the periosteum of a root is involved in
abscess, the indications certainly point to the re-