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the measles on a journey, and not knowing what ailed them, pursued their journey, and thereby had the disease very mildly.

The complaints which commonly follow the measles were removed by blood-letting, purging, a spare diet, blisters and opiates, together with suitable vermifuges where they were necessary, and suitable exercise.

I conclude with the following remarks:

1. I knew several pregnant females pass through the disease without any thing remarkable happening in consequence of it, except that they were rather more severely affected with

it than others.

2. In those cases which proved fatal, I was informed that the hot regimen was rigorously pursued; such as giving the patients hot driving teas, and warm medicines; keeping them in bed, and in warm rooms.

3. Two objects only seem necessary to be pursued to insure a mild form of the measles at all times and in all places 1st. To preserve the heat of the body as nearly in its natural temperature as possible; and, 2dly. To keep the stomach and intestines free from accumulated, offensive matters of any kind; or, in other words, to keep the stomach and intestines in a state of action, instead of suffering them to remain in a state of torpor. Hence, as a certain degree of torpor affects the stomach and intestines for a few of the first days of the disease, and previous to the increased action of the vessels of the skin in all exanthematous diseases, we learn why, on some occasions, a little warm drink, or ardent spirit, or opium, or an emetic or cathartic, or blood-letting, is so useful in promoting the eruption of the measles. For it is not to be denied, that although the antiphlogistic regimen is best adapted to the nature of the disease in our part of the country, there are cases when a gentle stimulus is highly serviceable in promoting the eruption, which it does by increasing the action of the stomach and its corresponding associate motions. But I am persuaded that, in most cases, blood-letting is much more proper. Blood-letting answers the same purpose, by equalizing the excitement of the system; that is, by lessening it in the sanguiferous system, and thereby increasing it in the stomach and capillary vessels of the skin. The substance of this remark may be comprized in fewer words; viz. the nearer the heat of the body is to its natural temperature, and the condition of the primæ viæ to their natural state, the milder will be the attack and progress of the measles at all times, and in all persons and places.

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4. From several facts which came to my knowledge, I have reason to believe that a preparation for the disease by mild diet will generally lessen its force.

5. Calomel, daily given in small doses, appeared to produce specific and very useful effects in removing the pulmonary complaints after blood-letting, or where the latter was objected to, or sparingly employed.

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Lastly. There are cases of measles in which it is somewhat difficult to determine when blood-letting is necessary. The circumstances by which this point is best ascertained, are the state of the symptoms in general, but especially of the pulse. Where there is a tense, or, what I consider synonimous, a hard pulse, blood-letting is always warrantable. There are many other states of the pulse which require blood-letting be sides the tense or hard pulse, but I need not name them. The convalescence from the measles is sometimes marked by a degree of indisposition which seems to deserve no attention, and is commonly neglected by patients and physicians, but for the removal of which, and the prevention of a consumption, in which it to often terminates, blood-letting is as necessary as in the most acute forms of the disease.*

ARTICLE VII.

An INQUIRY into the CAUSE of the PREMATURE DECAY of the HUMAN TEETH in AMERICA. By Dr. MALACHI Foor, of the City of New-York.

BY

Y the appellation "teeth," in the sequel, is meant not only those bony substances properly so called, with their appendages, as nerves and blood-vessels; but also the membranes in which they are partially enveloped, which line the alveolar processes and sockets, with the gums.

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Much irrelative matter has been advanced concerning the comparatively inferior state of American teeth. So much influence has custom in appropriating to the dentist the exclusive consideration of every thing appertaining to this subject; and so long has this department of the profession, both in their reasonings and practice, been in the habit of considering these

"It is common for the measles, even when they have not been of a violent kind, to be succeeded by inflammatory affections, particularly opthalmia and phthisis."-Dr. Cullen.

organs as mere appendages of the animal machine, that I doubt not that all general reasonings thereon will be considered as absurd, if not any view of the subject, as an infringement of their rights, and as an intrusion upon "hallowed ground." That the teeth should be affected by general agents, analogous to other parts of the system, and subjected by their operation to morbid derangements, is a reasonable conclusion; and, in conformity thereto, we find the most vigorous and robust habits of body favoured with a sound and healthy condition of those organs; while the opposite state is often traced to impaired health and constitutional circumstances.

Though I am not disposed to deny in toto the influence of certain local causes in impairing a sound and healthy state of the teeth, they are certainly incompetent to a solution of the present inquiry. The truth of this is obvious in answers to the following interrogatories:-Are Europeans less subject to diseased teeth at a given age than Americans? Is this owing to a neglect of local management, or the practice of taking into the mouth substances from which the former abstain? Do European en igrants experience the same inconvenience? If these questions be answered in the affirmative, we are to look to the climate for the solution of an inquiry otherwise obscure.

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Of agents whose operations are general, there are none, at least in this climate, whose influence is more variable and fluctuating, and, withal, less controulable by human wisdom, than that of temperature. The importance to the animal economy a due degree of heat is well known. But it is not merely the degree of present caloric, or its absence, that proves so injurious to the principle of life, as its relation to the state of the system at the time of operation. So happily calculated are living bodies to adapt themselves to external agents, and particularly to that of temperature, when its first impressions and its succeeding operations are equable and permanent, that scarcely any known extreme is incompatible with health and vigour. It is to the variable and fluctuating conditions of temperature, aided by sudden alternations of drought and moisture, that morbid impressions are principally imputable.

However plausible or aecurate may be the opinion of an eminent modern philosopher,* who teaches that a set of nerves is exclusively appropriated to the perception of heat and cold, even its fallacy, if such, does not militate against the well

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known fact, that the teeth are possessed of a nice and exqui❤ site degree of susceptibility to the operations of temperature. Hence, by a wise provision in the animal economy, we are enabled to measure the degree of heat and cold in bodies taken into the mouth, and thereby to guard from lesion a more im portant organ-the stomach.

The teeth, from their exposed situation, are subject to the local operations of temperature, and, doubtless, cannot but experience much inconvenience from immediate impressions of external air, as well as by substances taken into the mouth: but their very general and comparatively early failure leads to the suspicion of a more impressive agency of the injurious

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It is by a proper application of the interesting doctrines of association, that many circumstances in the animal economy, otherwise obscure, receive a happy illustration. May not the teeth be considered as a centre of association, in which are concentrated the morbid impressions of temperature, ope rating primarily on the system, either generally or partially? Analogous to this is the operation of certain well-known agents, as noxious miasmata, in concentrating their action in the sto mach and liver. The parts about the larynx and trachea become the conspicuous seat of the agency of the canine poison, however remote the part by which that deadly virus gains admission; and certain articles of the Materia Medica appear to possess a determined and apparently exclusive operation on particular parts of the system.

In a view to estimate the comparatively controuling and predominant influence of particular portions of the body, the importance of the organs of which we treat is, in this respect, greater than a superficial view of the subject would seem to warrant. This relation is conspicuous as respects some of the organs of sense. With that of hearing, it is exemplified in a certain indescribable sensation excited by the harsh grating of two bodies against each other, as the edges of certain seashells, broken china, &c. The unpleasant sensation produced in these organs by rubbing the ends of the fingers over a rough surface, as a coarse wool hat, indicates a strong sympathy with the sense of touch.

This opinion also receives no small accession of plausibility from the doctrine of reciprocal sympathies. Among other observers, we are presented with opinions of no less weight than those of Drs. Darwin, and Rush, that diseases of various types, as dyspepsia, hæmicrania, hysteria, intermittent fever,

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and even epilepsy, have had their origin successfully traced to diseased teeth.

While reasonings of this kind tend to establish the opinion of a strong and intimate connection between the teeth and other parts of the system, the additional consideration of their exquisite sensibility to heat and cold leaves no reasonable doubt of their aptitude to receive, as a "centre of association," to a disproportionate degree, all impressions of either increased or diminished temperature.

Should an argument unfavourable to the doctrine which is the object of this paper arise, from the circumstance of numerous and striking exemptions in certain classes whose occupations require undue exposure, we need only to recur to the predominant power of habit and established temperaments in removing the (at first) apparently plausible objection. Hence the native Red Men of America, with few exceptions, are possessed of sound and beautiful teeth; while recent European emigrants experience the influence of our climate most sensibly, and are the first to complain of these organs.

A confidence in the opinions above advanced leaves much Foom to doubt the efficacy of an exclusively local management. Estimating the value of general and local remedies, whether preventative or otherwise, by the degree of separate influence justly due to each of the corresponding causes, we shall probably place much less confidence in the latter, and hope much from a nice management of cloathing, and adapting its variation to present weather.

How much soever may be accomplished by those whose circumstances favour a disposition to avoid undue exposure, and by a cautious management of dress, it is but too obvious that, in a climate like that of America, even a sedulous combination of every means necessary to evade its fluctuating character is scarcely competent to an entire exemption from its noxious influence.

If a practice resulting from these opinions could influence the present modes of dress among a respectable part of society, it is presumed that it might, at least, prevent an unnecessary degree of mortality.

If the uncouth situation of a young female crippled by rheumatism, and especially a consideration of the disproportionate number of that class of victims to phthisis pulmonalis, which swells the columns of our weekly obituary, should have no salutary effect, a reasonable hope might be indulged,

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