On the peculariarities of dentition in man and its influence on infantile mortality / by J. Smith.

  • Smith, J.
Date:
[1855]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the peculariarities of dentition in man and its influence on infantile mortality / by J. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/14 (page 4)
    hension on this subject, exists in the fact, that from the greater susceptibility at this age to impressions of any kind, sometimes to those of a very slight nature, considerable constitutional disturbance, altogether apart from this cause, is of very common occurrence; and, although certainly not in every case due to this process, yet the eruptive stage of dentition offering something like a plausible explanation of suffering, an unfavourable impression generally pre¬ vails regarding it, and affections are imputed to its agency, which might, in many cases, be traced to an entirely different origin. However, attention being arrested by what appears to be so evident a cause of uneasiness, all treatment is at once turned in that direction, and the true cause of the disorder probably overlooked. The opinions entertained of dentition being the source of such serious results as are generally ascribed to it, appear in a great measure owing to this unfavourable prejudice existing in the minds of medical men; and while the works of the more early authors on this subject, contain statements involving such misconception and inaccuracy, as to render their confutation unnecessary, we find, at the present day, that the same inclination towards exaggerated ideas of the pernicious able degree. As an illustration of what we here state in reference to this ques¬ tion, we find in the u Gazette des Hopitaux,” for March 3, 1855, the following remarks : “ One sixth of all infants born perish annually at the period of dentition. Already, in 1781, the Koyal Society of Medicine, struck by this alarming proportion, offered a prize for the best essay on the following subject, ‘ What are the best means to be employed for the prevention of the accidents of dentition, common to infants at the breast, and for their successful treatment when they occur ? ’ The question, hitherto ill-studied, •has not as yet been solved, for, as the mortality tables substantiate, the proportion of infants lost by dentition, is exactly the same at the present day as it was in 1781.” Not to mention the fact of the rate of infantile mortality having diminished in every way since 1781, it need only be remarked with regard to the assertion that e( one-sixth of infants born perish annually at the period of dentition,” that, according to the latest statistics, the total number of deaths from all causes whatever, occurring between the third and twenty-fourth months, allowing this period to embrace that of more active dentition, does not amount, annually, to on e-seventh of the number born. Thus, in the last volume of the Registrar-General’s Reports, the deaths in England for 1849, between the ages of 3 and 24 months inclusive, amounted to 40,847, while the number bom was 295,158, making the number of deaths less than one-seventh. Dentition, taking place as it does, generally speaking, about the same time in all children, we should find, were its concomitant disorders of so fatal a character, that the tendency of this process, prevails to a very consider-