The anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the teeth / by Thomas Bell.

  • Bell, Thomas, 1792-1880.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the teeth / by Thomas Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    314/408 (page 288)
    O NT EXTRACTION OF THE TEETH. The operation of extracting the teeth, though not unfrequently consigned to persons who have no pre- tensions to professional knowledge, and, in many cases even to the lowest mechanics, is one which nevertheless requires, for its judicious and safe per- formance, as much care and firmness, and as cor- rect an acquaintance with the anatomy of the parts concerned in it, as many of the operations of surgery, to which a much higher degree of importance is commonly attached. That in the greater number of instances, this operation is performed by mere mechanical force, without any very serious conse- quences occurring, may perhaps be granted ; but it is no less true, that even in the most simple cases, the pain of the operation is greatly diminished by a judicious choice and application of the instruments ; whilst the frightful results which sometimes accrue from the employment of ill-directed violence, forcibly point out the necessity of some degree of surgical skill to render it at once safe and successful. Every country village has its stories of the loss of portions of the jaw-bone—the extraction of sound teeth in mistake for the decayed ones—and various diseases which are attributed with greater or less truth to this cause, and for which, the barber or the blacksmith has to atone.