"Yes. But that wasn't so bad as its consequences; the abscess caused the bone to decay, and produced what the doctors called a disease of the antrum, which extended until the bone was eaten clear through, so that the abscess discharged itself by the nostrils."
"Oh, horrible!" I exclaimed, feeling as sick as death, while the pain in my tooth was increased fourfold. "How long did you say this abscess was in forming?"
"Some months."
"Did she have an operation performed?" I have a terrible fear of operations.
"Oh, yes. It was the only thing that saved her life. They scraped all the flesh away on one cheek and then cut a hole through the bone. This was after the tooth had been drawn, in doing which the jaw-bone was broken dreadfully. It was months before it healed, or before she could eat with any thing but a spoon."
This completely unmanned, or, rather, unwomanned me. I asked no more questions, although my visitor continued to give me a good deal of minute information on the subject of abscesses, and the dreadful consequences that too frequently attended them. After she left another friend called, to whom I mentioned the fact of having a very bad tooth-ache, and asked her if she had ever known any one to have an abscess at the root of a sound tooth.
She replied that tooth-ache from that cause was not unfrequent, and that, sometimes, very bad consequences resulted from it. She advised me, by all means, to have the tooth extracted.
"I can't bear the thought of that," I replied. "I never had but one tooth drawn, and when I think of having another extracted I grow cold all over."
"Still, that is much better than having caries of the jaw, which has been known to attend an abscess at the root of a tooth."
"But this does not always follow?"