“It sometimes occurs, after recovery from illness, that convalescents, in order to acquire strength, drink too great a quantity of wine; and that this after a certain time produces a beginning of inflammation of the stomach. In such cases the teeth often fall out, the breath becomes fetid, and if the patient eats hot food, the empty alveoli as well as the cheeks are painful.”
Various internal medicaments and dentifrice powders are prescribed for combating this morbid condition. One of these latter includes a great number of ingredients in its composition; among others, the bones of mice.
Mention is also made of certain remedies, to which recourse may be had at times, for allaying violent dental pains, of whatsoever kind, or whatever be the cause that occasions them.
One of these remedies is composed of different substances (among them, garlic and saltpetre), to be pulverized and made into pills. If the pain be on the left side, one introduces one of the pills into the right ear, and vice versa.
The formula is also given for a very complicated medicated powder, to be snuffed up in the left nostril if the person suffering from toothache be a man; in the right if a woman.
Another powder is to be smelt with the right nostril or with the left, corresponding to the side on which the pain is located.
Abscesses and fistulæ of the gums are spoken of as follows:
“It sometimes occurs that an abscess forms in some one point of the gum; this communicates great pain to the tooth near it; the abscess is white, with discharge of purulent matter.” The treatment consists in the use of different medicated powders, to be rubbed on the affected part. Two of the powders contain musk, besides several other ingredients. A lotion is also prescribed.
In the next chapter the following affections are described: