VEGETABLE SOUP FOR BABIES.
- 1 handful of spinach;
- 1 beet;
- 2 carrots.
Chop fine and boil two hours in 1 quart of water.
Strain through gauze and add sterile water to make up deficiency to 1 quart.
TOOTHACHE: Its Forms, Diagnosis, and Treatment for Relief.
The sharp, paroxysmal, shooting pain which is caused by the application of cold, heat, sweets or sours, or by biting some substances into a cavity, is due to a live pulp, and the treatment is quite simple. Clean out the cavity as well as possible, then saturate a small pellet of cotton with oil of cloves, or one drop of carbolic acid, or a solution of cocaine hydrochlorate and clove oil. Place this in the cavity and add another pellet of cotton to prevent the solution from being washed out by saliva. Relief should be immediate, but if not, reapply within a few minutes.
The dull, throbbing pain, with swelling of the face and a sensation of elongation of the tooth, is caused by either a putrescent pulp or an imperfect root canal filling. There is infection; therefore, the first thing to do is to remove the pus.
Dental Treatment.—If there is a large cavity in the tooth, try to enter the root canals and remove the putrescent matter. If the face is badly swollen, make a digital examination, and over the root of the affected tooth you will find a spot about the center of the swelling where it seems to be spongy, appearing to hold the impress of the finger. Take a clean, sharp, cycle-shaped lancet, place on the spot, holding the patient’s head firm with your other arm for fear of his moving. Press the lancet firmly and directly through to the bone, then draw it out with a pulling motion so as to make a cut about an eighth of an inch or more. If this has been done properly, a creamy flow of pus should follow the lancet. Place the fingers on either side of the incision and massage toward incision. To relieve the pain, give hot foot-baths, cold applications to face (never hot), and some other sedative internally, such as remedies given for a headache. When a tooth is sore to percussion, so that the food cannot be masticated, but is without pain when left at rest, if there is no pain over the root of the tooth, it is best to give the tooth a rest, and apply counterirritants over the roots of the adjacent teeth.
This condition is called apical pericementitis, an inflammation of the layer of bone about the fangs of teeth. For relief, give hot foot-baths and pain remedies, as in abscessed tooth. A dead pulp in a tooth will form gas and cause the sensation of elongation and soreness. If the putrefaction is not removed, an abscess will result. At first there will be no soreness to pressure over the root, but on application of heat, such as drinking hot coffee, there will be pain, while cold water will temporarily remove it.
Dental Treatment.—Open the chamber and remove the putrescent pulp, being careful not to go beyond the apical foramen. Use a barbed broach, then wash out with peroxide of hydrogen on a thread of absorbent cotton wrapped smoothly about the broach. Do not push the instrument up into the canal very far for fear of sending some putrescent matter beyond the tooth. Then withdraw the broach and apply oil of cloves or carbolic acid, leaving the canal open and clean for the gas to escape. Hot foot-baths and headache remedies will relieve the pain.