“Dr. Alphonsus Lercy, of Paris, has published an essay on certain diseases of men, which he traces to the animals on which they had fed; and he establishes the doctrine generally, that many diseases with which mankind are afflicted, are communicated by eating the flesh of animals.” (Monthly Magazine, June 1815, p. 446.)
“The late Sir Edward Barry prevailed with a man to live on partridges, without vegetables; but after eight days’ trial he was obliged to desist, in consequence of strong symptoms then appearing of an incipient putrefaction.” (Sir J. Sinclair’s Code of Health, Vol. I. p. 425.)
“The use of swine’s flesh, in union with ardent spirits, is, in all likelihood, the grand cause of the scurvy, which is so common in the British nation, and which would probably assume the form and virulence of a leprosy, were our climate as hot as that of Judea.” (Dr. Adam Clarke.)
“It is a remarkable fact, that at Heimaey, the only one of the Westmann islands which is inhabited, scarcely a single instance has been known, during the last twenty years, of a child surviving the period of infancy. In consequence, the population, which does not exceed two hundred souls, is entirely kept up by emigration from the main land of Iceland. The food of this people consists principally of sea-birds, fulmars, and puffins. The fulmars they procure in vast abundance; and they use the eggs and flesh of the birds, and salt the latter for their winter food. There are a few cows and sheep on the island, but the inhabitants are said to have no vegetable food.”—(Dr. Lambe’s Reports on Regimen, p. 197.)
“In ancient times, the medicines of the Indians consisted chiefly, according to Strabo, in regularity, temperance, and a choice of food.” (Bartolomeo, by Johnson, p. 423.)
“The man who forsakes not the law, and eats not flesh meat, like a blood thirsty demon, shall attain good will in this world, and shall not be afflicted with maladies.” (Laws of Menu, from Sir William Jones, Vol. III. p. 206.)
(Dryden’s Virgil, Georg. II. l. 698.—III. l. 790.)
“The moral effect of aliment is clearly evinced in the different tempers of the carnivorous and the frugivorous animals. The former, whose destructive passions, like those of ignorant man, lay waste all within their reach, are constantly tormented with hunger, which returns and rages in proportion to their devastation; this creates that state of warfare or disquietude which seeks, as in murderers, the night and the veil of the forest; for should they appear on the plain, their prey escapes, or, seen by each other, their warfare begins.—The frugivorous animals wander tranquilly on the plains, and testify their joyful existence by frisking and basking in the genial rays of the sun, or browsing with pleasure on the green herb. The same effect of aliment is discernible amongst the different species of men; the peaceful temper of the frugivorous Asiatic is strongly contrasted with the ferocious disposition of the carnivorous European.” (Jean Jacques Rousseau.)
“The man who sheds the blood of an ox or sheep, will be habituated more easily than another to witness the effusion of that of his fellow men; inhumanity takes possession of his soul; and the professions whose object is to sacrifice animals for the purpose of supplying the supposed necessities of men, impart to those who exercise them, a ferocity which their relative connexions with society but imperfectly serve to mitigate.” (Encyclopedie Methodique. Tome VII. Part. 1. liv. 65.)
“India, in fact, of all the regions of the earth, is the only public theatre of justice and tenderness to brutes, and all living creatures; for there, not confining murder to the killing of man, they religiously abstain from taking the life of the meanest animal.” (Ovington’s Voyage to Surat, p. 296.)
“The Gentoos rear numerous herds of cattle; but such is their veneration for these animals, on account of their useful and patient services to man, that to kill, or even maim one of them, is deemed a capital offence.” (M. de Page’s Travels, Vol. II. p. 27.)
“Among the Wallachians, though there is no positive institution to the contrary, yet the women never destroy the life of any creature. Whether this custom were founded by some of their ancient legislators, or whether it originated from accidental circumstances, is uncertain; but however that be, nothing can be more suitable to the gentleness and timidity which form the most beautiful and engaging part of the female character.” (Dr. Alexander’s History of Women, Vol. I. p. 366.)
“The Indian Bramins neither kill nor eat any sort of animal; and it is certain they have not done it for more than two thousand years.” (Dr. Clarke’s Fleury, p. 87.)
“As a proof of the havoc committed by more savage man on the creatures of his prey, it is said, that in Paris there are four thousand sellers of oysters, and that fifteen hundred large oxen, and above sixteen thousand sheep, calves, or hogs, besides a prodigious quantity of poultry and wild fowls, are eaten daily.” (Bayle’s Dictionary.—Art. Ovid.)
“When children are barbarous towards innocent animals, they will soon become the same towards men. Caligula, before imbruing his hands in human blood, had made a practice of destroying flies. It may be said, that the moral behavior of man to man commences, in some measure, with that of an infant towards insects. Never, therefore, let a child acquire a truth by means of a vice; nor extend its understanding at the expense of its heart. Let it not study the laws of nature in the pangs of sentient beings; but rather in the succession of their enjoyments.” (St. Pierre’s Harmonies of Nature, Vol. I. p. 411.)
The celebrated Mr. John Tweddell, in one of his letters, thus beautifully expresses himself:—“I no longer eat flesh meat, nor drink fermented liquors. As for the latter, it is merely because I do not believe that they can ever be good for the constitution, and still more especially with a vegetable diet. With regard to the flesh of animals, I have many times thought on the subject. I am persuaded we have no other right than the right of the strongest, to sacrifice to our monstrous appetites the bodies of living things, of whose qualities and relations we are ignorant. Different objections which struck me, as to the probability of good from the universality of this practice, have hitherto held me in indecision.
“I doubted whether, if this abstinence were universal, the animals which we now devour might not devour, in their turn, the fruits and vegetables reserved for our sustenance. I do not know whether this would be so; but I do not believe it: it seems to me that their numbers would not augment in the proportion which is apprehended. If, on the one hand, we now consume them with our teeth, on the other, we might then abandon our schemes and inventions for augmenting the means of propagation. Let nature follow her own course with regard to all that lives. I am told that they would destroy each other:—In the first place, the two objections cannot exist together: if they would destroy each other, their numbers would not be excessive. And what is this mutual destruction to me? Who has constituted me dictator of the realms of nature? Why am I umpire between the mistress and her servants? Because two chickens fight till one dies, am I obliged to worry one of them to prevent the engagement? Exquisite and well imagined humanity!
“On the other hand, let precautions be adopted against famine, when experience shall have shown the necessity of them; in the mean while, we are not called upon to bury in our bowels the carcasses of animals, which, a few hours before, lowed or bleated; to flay and to dismember a defenceless creature; to pamper the unsuspecting beast that grazes before us, with the single view of sucking its blood and grinding its bones; and to become the unnatural murderers of beings, of whose powers and faculties, of whose modes of communication and mutual intercourse, of whose degree of sensibility and extent of pain and pleasure, we are necessarily and fundamentally ignorant.” (Life and Remains of J. Tweddell, p. 215.)
“Abstinence,” says Shelley, “from animal food, subtilizes and clears the intellectual faculties.” For all the sensualities of the table he had an ineffable contempt, and, like Newton, used sometimes to ask if he had dined. (Vide Life of Shelley.)
“So many dishes, so many disorders.”
Seneca.
Milton.
“By salt, Cayenne pepper, and other high seasonings, they stimulate the appetite, turn round the wheels of life too rapidly, and wear out the body, or machine, before its time; whereas, those who abstain from such wine, spirituous liquors, and hot spicy aliments, acquire an exquisite degree of delicacy in the sense of tasting; their spirits are more equal, their feelings more pleasurable, and, generally, they are much longer lived.” (Dr. Abernethy.)
“Temperance and exercise are the parents of health.”
Mason.
The common ingredients of health and long life are:—
Anon.
“It appears that the structure and uses of the teeth are more perfectly equalized in the human subject, than in any other animal. It is true that, in some tribes of animals, whose habits require the greatest possible extension of the office of a particular class of the teeth, a corresponding development of that class is found to take place, to a much greater degree than in man.
“Thus, in the carnivora, the cuspidati are greatly elongated and strengthened, in order to enable them to seize their food and to tear it in pieces; in the rodentia, or gnawing animals, as in the beaver, for instance, the incisors are remarkably long, and exhibit that extraordinary development which their peculiar habits demand, and in the graminivorous animals, the ruminantia especially, the molares are found to occupy the most conspicuous situation. But, in each of these instances, the other kinds of teeth are found to be proportionably of less importance, and in some cases, are actually wanting. In man, on the contrary, every class appears to be equally developed, to a moderate, though a sufficient degree, and to exhibit a perfection of structure which may be considered as being the true type, from which all other forms are mere deviations. It becomes, therefore, a question of some interest, and perhaps of no less difficulty, to what food the structure which has just been demonstrated is particularly adapted. The opinion which I venture to give has not been hastily formed, nor without what appeared to me sufficient grounds; I advance it, however, with diffidence, and do not profess to consider it much more than hypothetical.
“The endowment of reason, that greatest, best gift of the Creator, appears, if we consider the perfection of human organization, to be particularly, and, in its highest degree, even exclusively, adapted to the conformation and requirements of man. This high and divine endowment should never be lost sight of in our reasonings on the human structure, and the physiology and habits of our species, as it is only with the allowances and modifications which the possession of a quality so infinitely higher than the instinct of other animals necessarily supposes, that the actual habits of man can be viewed as compatible with his organization. Although these habits, now essentially arising from, and combined with a state of civilization, which, in a greater or less degree, must be allowed to exist in every known tribe of our species, cannot be considered, in any one instance, as actual and exclusively natural; yet we may be led, by a careful examination of the structure of the different organs, and by an analogical comparison of them, as they exist in man, with the same organs in those animals which most nearly resemble him in structure, but which are still found in a perfectly natural state, to a plausible supposition, at least, of what were originally his natural habits; and which would have still continued so, but for those changes which have arisen from the possession of this very endowment.
“With this view of the subject, it is not, I think, going too far to say, that every fact connected with the human organization goes to prove, that man was originally formed a frugivorous animal, and therefore probably tropical, or nearly so, with regard to his geographical situation. This opinion is principally derived from the formation of his teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin, and the general structure of his limbs. It is not my intention now to go farther into the discussion of this subject than to observe, that if analogy be allowed to have any weight in the argument, it is wholly on that side of the question which I have just taken.—Those animals whose teeth and digestive apparatus most nearly resemble our own, namely, the apes and monkeys, are undoubtedly frugivorous; but as, from their organization, they are necessarily tropical animals, and without the gift of reason, by which they might have overcome the difference of temperature by artificial means, they remain still restricted to their original food, and confined to the very limited climate to which their structure peculiarly adapted them. The reasoning powers of man, on the contrary, have enabled him to set climate at defiance, and have rendered him, in all cases, more or less an artificial being. No longer restrained within that range of temperature to which the delicacy of his frame, no less than the nature of his original nutriment would have confined him, he becomes the denizen of every climate, and the lord of terrestrial creation.” (Bell on the Teeth, pp. 33—36.)
“Temperance, cleanliness, and abstinence, have greater power over the soul and body than most in our days imagine. Some of the ancients have delivered it as a maxim, ‘That none could understand God and his works, and enjoy perfect health and long life, but those that abstain from flesh, wine, and vices, bounding their desires according to the ends and necessities of nature.’ Most men will in words confess, that there is no blessing this world affords comparable to health, yet rarely do any of them value it as they ought to do, till they feel the want of it. To him that has obtained this goodly gift, the meanest food, even bread and water, are most pleasant, and all sorts of labor and exercise delightful. But the contrary makes all things nauseous and distasteful. What are full-spread tables, riches, and honors, to him that is tormented with distempers? Happy it were, if men did but use the tenth part of the care and diligence to perserve their minds and bodies in health, as they do to procure riches, which serve them chiefly to procure those dainties and superfluities which generate disease, and are the causes of many other evils, there being but few men that know how to use riches as they ought. As little and as mean food and drink, will maintain a lord in perfect health as the poorest peasant. But, alas! the momentary pleasures of the appetite entice most people to exceed the bounds of necessity or convenience, and many are seduced by a false opinion of nature, childishly imagining that the richer the food, and the more they consume, the more they shall be strengthened thereby. But experience proves the reverse; for the persons who accustom themselves to the richest compound food, and most cordial drinks, are uniformly the most infirm and diseased. People much mistake in supposing, that, so long as the appetite desires and the pleasure of eating continues strong, they may eat on without damage to their health. The truth is, this is one of the chief reasons why men are gluttons; and there is little difficulty in temperance, save only in this particular; it being somewhat hard for a healthy man to give off eating in the midst of the pleasure he receives by it, especially when meats by art are made on purpose, not only to prolong the appetite, but also to delight it. Varieties of food are always dangerous, if great care and temperance be not observed. He that limits his desire by wisdom, and has the understanding both of the quality and the quantity, may eat of sundry sorts of food at once; but the ignorant and unwise very rarely do it without prejudice to their health.” (Tryon’s Way to Health, Long Life, and Happiness, London, 1691, pp. 41, 42, 43.)
The same very ingenious writer remarks, page 137, “If you will be so habituated and wedded to your unhealthy customs, that you, ask not whether nature be weak and impotent, then you may mix your food with all the varieties that the East and West Indies produce; you may make your drink as strong and cordial as you wish; you may wrap yourselves at night in beds of down; and when it is nine or ten o’clock in the morning, look that you have a good, rousing fire in your chambers, and breakfast ready; and two or three hours afterwards, let a plentiful dinner of varieties be made ready, with strong and inflaming liquors. This is the trade that many thousands of this nation pursue, as if they studied to bring diseases upon themselves, and dig their graves with their own teeth; for, in the midst of all their affluence, wherein they esteem themselves happy, they are yet most miserable.”
Of all the forms of vegetable matter proper to this climate, the farinaceous grains are undoubtedly the most important; but in making them into bread, the following rules from Tryon should be well observed;—and his advice will be found to have lost none of its value by coming from a writer in the reign of William and Mary.
“If you set any value on health, and have a mind to preserve nature, you must not separate the finest from the coarsest flour, because that which is fine is naturally of an obstructive quality; but, on the contrary, the other, which is coarse, is of a cleansing and opening nature; therefore, that bread is best which is made of both together. In the inward bean and skin of the wheat is contained an oily quality, of a sweet nature, by reason whereof, bread made of fine and coarse together will not only be sweeter, and keep longer moist, but is also more wholesome; easier of concoction. It must be confessed, that the nutritive quality is contained in the fine flour, yet, in the branny part is contained the opening and digestive quality and there is as great a necessity for the one as for the other, for the support of health. By what has been said, we may gather that the eating of fine bread is inimical to health, and contrary both to nature and reason; and was at first invented to gratify luxurious persons, who are ignorant both of themselves and of the true virtue and efficacy of natural things.” (Tryon’s Way to Health, pp. 147, 148.)
The same author, pp. 286, 287, relates the following anecdote of Henry VIII. “There is a pleasant story of king Henry VIII., in the first part of his reign, riding a hunting; and being hungry, he strayed from his attendants, and came alone to a monastery about dinner time. The fat, lazy abbot, welcomed him very kindly, for hearing that the king was in that country, he concluded this was one of his guards. At dinner they had great varieties, and the king fed like a farmer on a piece of roast beef. But the abbot, who daily crammed himself with delicacies, could scarce relish a bit of any thing before him; and pleasantly said to the king:—‘Honest friend, I would give five hundred pounds if I could pick so heartily as you do on a piece of roast beef.’ The king returned him some small compliment, and after dinner took his leave. About a fortnight after, the king sent a messenger for the old fulsome abbot, and ordered him to be carried to the tower, there to be close prisoner, and allowed a given quantity of small beer and bread every day, but no other food. The abbot could not imagine what he had done to occasion such an imprisonment; and being thus dieted, he soon came to have a good stomach. After about a month, the king ordered the keeper to carry him in a good piece of hot roast beef, on which the abbot fell with such violence as if he would have eaten it at a mouthful. The king, who was stationed in a room where he could see how he laid about, at last stepped in and demanded his five hundred pounds. ‘For,’ said he, ‘you said you would give it; and I have performed the cure, and got you a better stomach than all the doctors in England would have done:’—and so upon payment of the five hundred pounds, discharged him.”
Goldsmith’s Hermit.
Barlow’s Hasty Pudding, Canto II.
“In China, a single acre of land sown with rice, produces sufficient for the consumption of five persons for a year, allowing two pounds and a half a day to each.” (Breton’s China, Vol. IX. p. 29.)
“The peculiar property of the corn plant, is that of being produced, in some shape or other, in every part of the world, from the rice of the Ganges to the barley of Finland. It is, however remarkable, that it no where grows spontaneously, like other plants, so that providence appears to have devolved altogether on our species the charge of maintaining and extending its cultivation. Bread is, of all vegetable nourishment, the most substantial and durable.” (St. Pierre’s Studies of Nature, Vol. I. p. 22.)
Thomson.
“Milk is in part vegetable food; and as such is used by all pastoral nations, and serves in a measure as a substitute for it.” (Dr. Lambe’s Reports on Regimen, p. 167.)
“To prevent indigestion, milk ought not to be eat together with flesh.” (Dr. Willet.)
“Eggs contain a larger proportion of pure nourishment than any other food. They are a most valuable article, not only when consumed by themselves, but when mixed with other things. Raw, poached, soft boiled, or in any ways lightly cooked, they are gently laxative, and sit easy on most stomachs.” (Sir John Sinclair’s Code of Health, Vol. I. p. 414.)
“An entire diet of vegetable matter gives to the disposition a gentleness, softness, and mildness of feeling, directly the reverse of that ferocity of mind and fierceness of character which form the leading feature of all carnivorous animals, it has also a particular influence on the powers of the mind, producing liveliness of imagination and acuteness of judgment in an eminent degree. (Sir John Sinclair’s Code of Health, Vol. I. p. 423.)
“Mœnenius Agrippa dispelled the prejudice of the Roman people, by a fabulous allusion to the absurdity and blindness of all the members of the human body joining in rebellion against the stomach:—and if fable or fact could be adduced with such successful persuasion to dispel the blindness of modern luxury, the stomach would not so perpetually be excited as it is, to the contrary office of waging war against all the members of the body.” (Thomas Hare on the Stomach, &c., London, 1821, p. 300.)
“The man who perceives in his own soul the supreme soul present in all creatures, acquires kindness towards all, and shall be absorbed at last in the highest essence, even in that of the Almighty himself.” (Laws of Menu.)
Tartar is an accumulation of acrimonious earthy matter, round the necks of the teeth. This accretion arises from the fluid secretions of the mouth, and consequently, few persons are entirely free from it, though some, from the state of their general health, may be more subject to it than others. The teeth to which it is generally attached, are those that are the least acted upon in the process of mastication; and the molares of the upper, as well as the incisors of the under jaw, being situated nearer to the salivary ducts, more readily become affected. Whenever tartar is permitted to accumulate around the teeth, the gums, the membrane lining the alveoli, and even the aveolar process itself, are liable to suffer through the powers of absorption being increased by inflammatory action. It thus not unfrequently happens, that persons through want of proper care and attention to the removal of tartar, have lost the whole of their teeth.
“The formation of a calculous deposit upon the teeth, in a greater or less degree, may almost be said to be universal; for, although in many persons of sound health and temperate habits, it is possible, by care, to remove it so immediately after its deposition, that the teeth are kept generally free from it, still, I believe it is in all cases produced, and would accumulate, but for constant attention to the proper means for its removal. It consists of calcareous substance, which, when first deposited, is soft, friable, and readily crumbling under the finger; but gradually, and, as it were, by a slow kind of crystallization, acquires almost a rocky hardness. Its usual color is a dull, whitish yellow, or buff; though in some cases it is dark brown, or black, and in others has a greenish hue. It also varies in the character of its surface, being generally smooth, especially in those parts where the tongue acts constantly upon it; but occasionally, in other parts, exceedingly rough and rugged. It is susceptible of being stained by any coloring matter frequently taken into the mouth during its deposition; as, for instance, from smoking tobacco, or from the long continued use of colored gargles, especially such as are composed of articles which are not capable of perfect solution in aqueous menstrua.
“With the exception of gangrene, there is no kind of injury to which the teeth are exposed, so commonly and so extensively destructive as this concretion.” (Bell on Human Teeth, p. 192.)
“It will be objected, perhaps, to what we have said, that many people who have beautiful teeth, and a healthy mouth, pay no attention to these parts; whilst those who attach a great value to them, and take the greatest care of them, have much trouble in preserving them. But it will also be an easy matter to reply to these objections, by making a comparison between children born of parents of sound constitution, and reared in the country, and those born in cities, whom an ill conducted education has predisposed to a debility of organization often to be recognised by the state of their teeth alone.—It ought, therefore, perhaps to be remarked, that diseased teeth with many individuals, originate in an organic disposition, which may be transmitted from fathers to their children.” (Gerbaux on the Teeth, Edinburgh Edition, p. 23.)
“It is a religious precept,” says Tournefort in his voyage to the Levant, “among the Mussulmen, to make the little ablution with the face turned toward Mecca; to rinse the mouth thrice, and clean their teeth with a brush.” This shows how highly this custom is esteemed among a people, who formerly were forbidden, according to Menavius, to have a tooth extracted without permission from the emperor. Let children be taught by their parents the proper degree of care necessary for their teeth; they generally imitate them even in their sports:—here the agreeable lesson will be converted into a useful habit. (Duval, p. 75.)
“As soon as the first teeth of a child are completed, they should be brushed twice, or, at least, once a day, with a soft brush and water. When children are thus early familiarized to the healthy and necessary custom of brushing the teeth, it becomes a fixed habit, and they find it ever afterward absolutely essential to their comfort. In winter, or in cold weather, the water used in brushing the teeth should be tepid. It is quite unnecessary to use any kind of powder to the first teeth of children.” (Murphy on the Teeth, London, 1811, p. 118.)
Tartar is more safely removed by instruments than by such chemical solvents as have been too commonly employed; for, although the injury they occasion is not at first perceptible, they ultimately disorder the substance and texture of the teeth. This is not the case when the operation is properly performed by means of instruments; and is attended with neither pain to the person, nor danger to the enamel.
The manual operation of cleaning the teeth with instruments, is not performed with equal skill and delicacy by all who practise it.—There are, of course, as many different degrees of merit in dentists, as there are in the practitioners of any other art or science.
Pope’s Essay on Man, Epistle III.
Caries is the most frequent disease of the teeth. The general seat of it is, on the sides of the front teeth and in the centre and sides of the back ones. Its progress through all its different stages is easily marked. First of all, a small dark spot appears on the enamel, through which the disease quickly passes into the internal structure of the bone. When this has taken place, the least pressure from chewing any hard substance is liable to break away portions of the enamel, and thus the internal part becomes subject to every injury which can arise from extraneous matter lodging therein. The molares are more subject to this disease than the front teeth; first, because their indented surfaces more readily retain any extraneous matter; and secondly, because they are less in view, and consequently less attended to.
In the enamel of the most apparently perfect teeth, small cracks may, with a magnifying power, easily be discovered. These, although unnoticed by the individual, are sufficient to admit disordered fluids, and to account for many forms of decay. This may likewise account for decay taking place in the broad surfaces of the molares, where the points of contraction always produce a depression, and thus afford a convenient lodgment for acrid saliva and other decomposing agents.
From my own observations I am induced to believe, that caries is universally caused by the action of external agents; and therefore cleanliness, and a due regard to the general health, after the proper offices of the dentist are performed, is the only guard against it. But some teeth, from their being of less dense structure, are less capable of resisting the action of decomposing matter, and consequently will require greater attention to ward off disease.
Mr. Brewster, of Charleston, whose experience, from having been fifteen years in extensive practice, has given him ample opportunities of judging, has, in a manuscript with which he politely furnished me, enumerated the following as the principal causes of decay. Constitutional softness of the teeth; The use of medicines during dentition or in after life; The too free use of acids, which, uniting with the lime in the enamel, destroys its strength; A too slow growth of the teeth between the time of protruding their points through the gum, and the full development of their crowns. It will often happen that the projecting points of the grinding teeth pass through the gum, and there for a long time remain with a portion of the surface, comprehending the indentations of the grinding surface, partially covered with the gum. As there is no union between the enamel and the gum, fine and soft particles of food insinuate themselves between the gum and the tooth. This matter decays, and the acid generated thereby acts perniciously on the enamel, and lays the foundation for subsequent decay of the tooth. The remedy is simple, and, in most cases, effectual. It consists in removing the gum from the top of the tooth, which is performed by a skilful operation, with little or no pain to the patient. This prolific source of decay I am not aware has ever been noticed by any writer on the teeth. Another prolific source of decay is the permitting a new tooth to come in contact with the decaying part of an old one. The remedy consists in removing a portion or the whole of the old tooth.
The too free use of mercury; The accumulation of tartar; Neglect of cleanliness by suffering the particles of food to remain between the teeth after meals; Irregular living, or any other cause which occasions a disordered stomach; Extremes of heat and cold; All Acids, whether in fruits, powders, or lotions; Metalic toothpicks; Injudicious dental operations; Most of the nostrums administered for tooth ache.
“I propose,” says Mr. Bell, “to substitute for the word caries, the term gangrene of the teeth, which expresses the real nature of the disease. It may be defined—mortification of any part of a tooth, producing gradual decomposition of its substance. It usually attacks the crown of the tooth; sometimes, though rarely, the neck; but I believe it scarcely ever makes its first appearance on the root. It invariably shows itself on the external surface of the bone, immediately underneath the enamel, and its existence is, in many cases, first indicated by an opaque spot on that substance, occasioned by partial breaking down of its crystalline structure; in others, its presence is shown by the discolored bone being seen through the semi-transparency of the enamel.” (Bell on the Human Teeth, p. 118.)
I have made the foregoing quotation from the work of Mr. Thomas Bell, with whom I once conversed personally on the doctrine contained therein, for the purpose of expressing my entire dissent from the opinion held by most of the writers on this subject, in relation both to the local origin, and the immediate cause of caries, or dental gangrene. Some of these writers divide the disease into two kinds, which they distinguish by the names external and internal caries; while others inculcate the doctrine so hostile to all my experience and observation, that caries commences, as Mr. Bell says in the passage quoted, on the surface of the bone, under the enamel, and that the disease becomes visible through the semi-transparency of the enamel, which itself is destroyed by being broken away by mechanical violence. Now I must aver, that after a constant and extensively diversified practice of nineteen years, both in Europe and America, I have never known a solitary instance of this disorder which was not evidently occasioned from external causes on the surface of the tooth, penetrating first through the enamel, if on the body of the tooth, and then assailing the bony structure.
There are teeth that are faulty, both in their enamel and organization; owing, probably, to constitutional or hereditary peculiarities which have not, as I am aware, ever been satisfactorily explained by any author.
As to the cause of caries, I published my opinion many years ago, first in London, and afterwards in this city, and have seen no cause to espouse a contrary opinion. I consider the immediate and exciting cause of dental decay to be always external to the tooth itself, and to consist of certain corrosive menstrua, to which these organs are exposed from bodily disease, improper aliments, powerful medicines and the thousand other sources of acrid filth and destructive poisons that become concentrated in the mouth and deposited upon the teeth. These procuring causes of caries may indeed derive their origin from constitutional diseases acting upon the system at various periods of life, but whatever internal defect of structure a tooth may derive from original organization, how much soever it may be predisposed to take a diseased action under favorable conditions, still, the tooth never decays till externally affected by putrescent, or corrosive, or disorganizing matter, which breaks up its structure.
That such has been my uniform opinion, will be seen from the following extract from the work on the stomach and digestive organs, published by Dr. Thomas Hare, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, in 1821.
“The theories concerning the cause of decay in the teeth which seem to have met most attention, are those referring it to an undue degree of compression exerted by the irlateral surfaces on each other, and to a putrefactive fermentation of extraneous matter lodging in the interstices. The former has been ably set forth by Mr. Bell, of St. Thomas’s Hospital, in the Medico-chirurgical Transactions; the latter was published about two years ago, by Mr. Parmly.” (page 269.)
Dr. Fitch alleges the following three modes in which disordered teeth contribute to the production of that distressing disease—the dyspepsy, or indigestion.
“First, by preventing a proper mastication of the food.
“Secondly, by the ulcerated and putrid matter which passes from the teeth and gums, along with the aliment, to the stomach.
“Thirdly, the irritation produced by diseased teeth, being often so great as to disturb the healthy functions of the system, and of the stomach in particular.” (Fitch on the Teeth, p. 308.)
“The pain commonly termed the tooth-ache is one of the most excruciating to which we are liable. It is caused by an inflammation of the membrane lining the cavity. In inflammation, one of the consequences is a swelling of the part, which is generally followed by a diminution of the pain, the degree of which seems to be regulated by the resistance and compression which the inflamed vessels suffer from the surrounding parts. The membrane of the tooth being situated within a cavity which is incapable of extension, there must necessarily exist an insurmountable obstacle to the swelling of the membrane; and this it is which renders the pain so extremely acute. In some few instances, caries will proceed without being accompanied by any sensations; the tooth gradually breaks away, until the whole of it is removed.” (Fox, Part II. p. 25.)
“The pain called tooth-ache, which Galen very properly considered the most cruel and grievous of all pains that are not mortal, seems clearly to be occasioned by decayed portions of bone, no matter how minute, acting by contact on the nerves of the teeth.—And I firmly believe the pain is never felt until the caries, which always acts from without inwards, has actually met a branch of nerve.
“No species of animal matter, in a state of decay, is so offensive to the vitality of the adjoining substance, whether nerve, or muscle, or membrane, or any part or portion of the living body, as decayed bone. How very small a portion of decayed bone in a tooth is capable not only of causing the most agonizing pains, but also of communicating a fœtor to the breath, is inconceivable by those who have not pursued the inquiry with minuteness: and this offensive matter, when it thus has an opportunity of acting, communicates, through the medium of the nerves, a sympathetic pain to the teeth which are perfectly sound.” (Hare on the Stomach, p. 240.)
In addition to the preceding remarks, I observe, that the tooth-ache is sometimes so severe as to produce alarming derangements of health; while at other times it is merely an annoying sensation, which can scarcely be termed pain. The cavity of the tooth, in most cases, is the original seat of this malady. But as the teeth are supplied by ramifications of those nerves which supply different parts of the face and head, it frequently happens that one or more of those parts may suffer more severely than the tooth itself.
Diseases in the wisdom teeth of the lower jaw affect the ear; and when those of the upper jaw are diseased, the temples generally become affected. The effects of disease in one tooth, from nervous influence, is sometimes felt in the opposing tooth of the other jaw.
No certain treatment can be laid down for the tooth-ache; it must be regulated entirely by a knowledge of the cause, whether arising from decay, the irritation of tartar, the application of cold, or merely as a sympathetic affection. The disease which occasions this malady is insidious in its progress, dangerous and sometimes fatal in its consequences; but the danger more frequently arises from an improper application of remedies, than from the disease itself. Powerful remedies for the tooth-ache, as well as for other diseases, are hazardous in the hands of the ignorant.
“When pains in the teeth show a disposition to change their places with great facility, like all rheumatic affections, they may yield to the most insignificant means, even to the touch of some amulet, applied with an air of mystery and confidence which imposes upon the patient. Every one knows, that in timid people, the presence of a surgeon, in most instances, is sufficient, for a time, to dispel the pain of tooth-ache. It is particularly for these pains that some dentists have a favorite odontalgic elixir, of whose sovereign virtues they are so fond of boasting. These liquors are almost all spirituous tinctures, whose powerfully stimulating action often suffices to suspend the pain.
“In fact, a drop of the tincture of opium, or any one of the essential oils, applied to the part by means of a little cotton, may produce an instantaneous abatement of the pain, but which seldom fails, sooner or later, to return. Frequent successes of this kind, of which marvellous accounts are daily published, have successfully brought into vogue numerous elixirs and various other means, all more or less ridiculous.” (Gerbaux, pp. 80, 83.)
“Doctor Sims, a celebrated practitioner in London, relates that he was such a martyr to the tooth-ache, that he was confined to his house for several weeks together by that malady, but after he avoided taking his food either hot or cold, he entirely escaped it. He was particularly careful not to take soup or any other liquid, of a temperature higher than ninety—eight degrees less than blood heat. He was induced to try this experiment, by reflecting that heat expanded all bodies. When applied to a tooth, therefore, it must diminish its cavity, compress the nerve, and consequently produce pain. However defective this theory may be, the practice of endeavoring to preserve those parts in an equable temperature, will be found to be highly important.” (Duval.—Atkinson’s translation, p. 76.)