The principles and practice of dentistry : including anatomy, physiology, pathology, therapeutics, dental surgery and mechanism / by Chapin A. Harris.

  • Harris, Chapin A. (Chapin Aaron), 1806-1860.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles and practice of dentistry : including anatomy, physiology, pathology, therapeutics, dental surgery and mechanism / by Chapin A. Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    obtained by heating up to 230°, and gradually increasing during four or five hours to 270°. The following article on the treatment and education of Cleft- Palate Patients by Dr. Norman W. Kingsley is both interesting and instructive :*— j “The only necessity for interference, in congenital cleft-palate cases, is to remedy the defective speech. “ From time to time it has been asserted that the difficulties which the patient met with in deglutition would justify a surgical operation, but this is a mistake. Long before the child has reached maturity he has learned to accommodate himself to his unfortunate condition, and has acquired the habit of swallowing so well that it does not cause him embarrassment. “ There is no other evil attending cleft palate except the difficulty of articulate speech, and this does not lie in the fact that one cannot articulate, but only that his articulation is necessarily different from that of people who have normal organs of speech. “ The fault is not defective vocal organs, because the vocal organs are always as well formed, and in themselves as capable of perfect speech, as those of the rest of mankind. The difficulty arises from the inabil¬ ity of the patient to manipulate his voice in the production of the consonants, which form so large a part of spoken language. With the exception of intonation, the vowel sounds of articulate language are comparatively pure in these cases. “ The effect, however, of an inability to articulate many consonants renders the speech in some instances quite unintelligible, and in all cases very disagreeable. But if all people were born with cleft palates, there would be no defective speech. The speech of mankind would then be made without the introduction of certain consonants, which now form a distinguishing part of all languages. Thus we see that articulate speech is not a normal function, but an acquirement of man as he evolved from an original speechless condition. “ For treatment of congenital cleft palate both surgery and mechan¬ ism have been resorted to. Surgery was naturally first suggested. As operators became more and more skilled in their art, it was but reason¬ able to suppose that a complete surgical union of the split palate would cure the obvious evil. Staphylorrhaphy first became famous about the year 1820, through the skill of an American surgeon, Dr. Warren, of Boston. For many years thereafter the operation was re¬ garded as one requiring unusual skill, and it became a favorite with ambitious surgeons desirous of distinction. * Dental Cosmos, February, 1894.