44 INFLAMMATION OF THE 



instrument. The practice of refusing to operate 

 for the extraction of teeth until inflammation of 

 the soft parts has subsided, caanot be too strongly 

 condemned. Patients' often suffer for weeks, and 

 even for life, from the effects of such injurious 

 surgery. In recent cases of inflamed antrum, 

 and under favourable circumstances, it will be 

 sufiicient to remove the exciting cause, and leave 

 Nature to complete the cure. If the inflammation 

 be acute, and attended with painful tumefaction, 

 feverishness, or rigors, it will be necessary to 

 draw blood from the gums and palate by means 

 oi free incisions, or the repeated application of 

 leeches, and to bathe the face with warm narcotic 

 fomentations. Purgative, sedative, and saline 

 medicines should be administered, and an antiphlo- 

 gistic treatment pursued to an extent consistent 

 with the severity of the attack and the powers of 

 the patient. Should active symptoms continue, 

 and the cavity become greatly distended by fluid, 

 it will be advisable to extract the first or second 

 upper molar tooth, and to perforate the antrum 

 with a large trocar or small trephine. The opening 

 which is usually made by the ordinary instrument 

 is by far too small, either to allow the escape of 

 clotted mucus, or to admit of successful injection. 

 The lining membrane may now be gently 

 fomented with warm decoction of poppies or 

 infusion of conium ; and if the pain be severe, 

 twenty or thirty minims of the sedative solution 



