Page 59 - My FlipBook

CAUSES OF CARIES. 55

their character so formidable, and not so difficult to
control, as those which are constitutional.
Many medicinal agents are regarded as predis-
posing causes of caries ; and among these, mercurials
occupy a prominent place. They operate by vitiating
the secretions of the mouth, and producing an abnor-
mal condition of the periosteum about the fangs of
teeth, the mucous follicles, and the salivary glands.

Some entertain the opinion that the abnormal action
of the absorbents, induced by mercurials, predisposes
to decay.
Dental operations performed at an improper time
and in an improper manner, may be reckoned among
the predisposing causes of caries. The vitality of tho
teeth may be thus impaired, or a diseased condition

established, or the part operated upon may be per-
mitted to remain rough, so that foreign substances
will be retained, and, becoming vitiated, produce a
deleterious effect. Often, from an improper use of
the file, extensive inflammation of the dentine super-
venes, which is sometimes followed by death of the
tooth, and by disease of the contiguous parts. Arti-
ficial substitutes imperfectly adapted, are, in many
instances, the occasion of caries ; not that clasps or
the edges of the plate tend directly to injure the

tooth, but the agencies superinduced by them do,