A treatise on the diseases and surgical operations of the mouth, and parts adjacent; with notes of interesting cases, ancient and modern / Translated from the French of M. Jourdain.

  • Jourdain, M. (Anselme Louis Bernard Bréchillet), 1734-1816.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the diseases and surgical operations of the mouth, and parts adjacent; with notes of interesting cases, ancient and modern / Translated from the French of M. Jourdain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/418 (page 14)
    time most instructive—instructive in the operations required, and in the consequences always resulting—in the treatment de- manded and also in the medicines administered, having due reference to their nature and operation. The rules laid down for the general treatment of surgical diseases in other parts of the body, can be by no means equally and indiscriminately applied to those of the mouth. For instance, the difficulty of arresting certain hemorrhages, from the impossibility of ap- plying effective and permanent compression ; the fear lest cer- tain corrosive applications should be dissolved by the saliva, pass into the oesophagus, and thence into the stomach ; the po- sition of certain parts requiring an operation ; finally, the diffi- culty of retaining a dressing, and the diminished effect of medi- cines, weakened by solution in the saliva and other fluids of the mouth—all present so many obstacles to be overcome in the treatment of surgical diseases of the mouth, which are not to the same extent met with in other parts of the body. If, more- over, regard is had to the nature and structure of either of the maxillary bones, and their differing degrees of ossification, vary- ing with the age and with the seat of the disease, no impartial man can fail to be convinced that, unless to a knowledge of general principles be added a special attention to this particular branch of surgery, there will be a liability to error in the opera- tions and treatment required by these diseases. And although some, prepossessed by a bought title, which seems to give them advantage, maintain, without the trouble of a correct investiga- tion, the contrary opinion, daily experience appeals from their decisions. The pertinacity with which they maintain their paradoxes, reveals more of self love and personal interest than of real attachment to the good of man, or the progress of art. Doubtless it will be argued, which I admit, that surgery has not lost sight of the diseases of which I at present attempt to treat. But that this objection may have full force, it will be necessary to see if one single work can be found, in which there is a complete and consecutive description of the causes, imme- diate and remote, of these diseases; of the various operations required ; and of the different plans of treatment, as modified