142 



POPULAE SCIENCE NEWS. 



[September, 1888. 



are gone, to the great improvement of their pa- 

 tients' health and of their personal appearance and 

 full enjoyment of life. 



The original method, that of tying the end bough 

 of a strong hickory or oak sapling to an aching and 

 decaying tooth, to the necessary physical, and let us 

 hope moral, elevation of the afflicted patient, is now 

 so much improved upon that an elegant upholstered 

 chair and a breath of laughing-gas makes pain a 

 pleasure. 



The tooth may be said to be an enlarged papilla 

 of the iuouth which has undergone such evolutional 

 and chemical changes that it has acquired a remark- 

 able degree of hardness. 



The fully developed tooth consists of three parts, 

 — the crown, the neck, the root. In the centre of the 

 tooth is a canal, which is filled with what is known 

 as dent il pulp. This consists of connective tissue, 

 nucleated cells, blood-vessels, and nerves. Each 

 cell sends one process or more into the tubules of 

 the dentine, while other attractions or repulsions 

 unite with other cells in the membrane and in the 

 interior of the mass. 



" Upon the outer surface of the dentine of the 

 crown of the tooth is the enamel, the hardest sub- 

 stance of the body. It is composed of closely 

 crowded polyhedral prisms, the enamel prisms, 



Fig. 1. 



A, Longitudinal section of a tootli; e, enamel; c, cementnni ; 

 d, dentine; n, nerve, or pulp. B, Enaniei rodH or priemR. 

 C, ?>)amel priHins showing arrangement in layers. B and 

 C, Magnified 450 diameters. 



enamel columns, enamel rods." Here, as in many 

 other instances of scientific inquiry, one is met by 

 the question of connection. The particles are in 

 close connection, but what attraction causes them 

 to rush into combination? What invisible force 

 ranges the particles into rank and file, hollow 

 squares, and triangles? And why, in the dentine 

 pulp, will whole brigades of particles change posi- 

 tion and form anew? 



Enamel is one of the most indestructible of sub- 

 stances arranged in the same polyhedral figures; 

 and the attraction which cements these prisms to- 

 gether is a substance, force, or law, as unknown to 

 investigators as are the laws of crystallization. 



There are constant improvements in manners and 

 methods of building up the old teeth, and fashion- 

 ing the artificial sets. One of the latest of these 

 improvements is given to the public by a paper read 

 by Dr. Abbott before the New York Academy of 

 Medicine, and printed in the Medical Record. 



Artificial sockets may be excavated in the jaw- 

 bone, and teeth that have long before been extracted 

 may be inserted, and, being for a time fastened 

 firmly into place, become in time thoroughly united 

 with the tissues of the socket, and thus become ser- 



viceable members, as firmly fixed as others that have 

 never been displaced. 



This is now spoken of as a new wonder; but 

 there is on record an account of a like operation, 

 published in the work of Abbe Pard in 1561. 



" I have heard of an operation represented by a 

 credible person that he saw a lady of the prime 

 nobility, who, instead of a rotten tooth which she 

 drew, made a sound tooth, which was drawn fi-om 

 one of her waiting-maids at the same time, to be 



Fig. 2. 



Section through cementum and dentine, c, Lacuna! or cells of 

 cementura. d. Dentinal tibres. a. Network of fibres con- 

 necting with lacun». 



substituted and inserted ; which tooth, as it were, 

 took root, and in time grew so firm as that she 

 could chaw upon it as well as upon any of the 

 rest." 



One great authority upon this topic inserted a 

 tooth into the comb of a cock which fully grew to 

 the comb. 



It is recommended to replant the tooth if knocked 

 out by accident, or extracted by mistake. And one 

 of the most succes.sful of operations is the re-insert- 

 ing of teeth that have been extracted to favor diffi- 

 cult surgical operations, as in abscesses. 



But it is only in the last three or four years that 

 Dr. Younger attempted for the first time to insert 

 foreign teeth — teeth other than those of the sub- 

 jects — into artificial sockets in the jaw-bone, and 

 often with great success. He has performed the 

 same feat forty times or more with success. 



As no person who has undergone this method has 

 had the tooth extracted to allow investigation of the 

 process by which nature does her work, the process 

 is unknown. But it is believed that a union takes 

 place between the membrane covering the root of 

 the tooth and the tissues of the bone. 



A jioxt-ynortem would throw light upon this 

 subject. 



A person was present at the session of the Medi- 

 cal Society before whom Dr. Abbott read his paper, 

 who had had two teeth implanted six months be- 

 fore, and which were seen to be firmly fastened, 

 although they had been extracted from the jaws of 

 their original owners eight years before. 



There has been no means discovered by which the 

 artificial plate may be discarded where the full .set 

 of teeth are artificial; but science has accomplished 

 so much, that means may be found to obviate this 

 difficulty. 



Iowa Cixv, Iowa, Auci. 1. 



[Original in Popular .Science N'ewa.'] 



KUHNIA AS A MEDICINE. 



BY DR. S. F. LANDKEY. 



A VERY common plant in the Central and West- 

 ern States commonly known as hog-weed, or fallow- 

 weed, and named by the Miami Indians "Pony- 

 tail," is that known to botanists as Kuhnia eupato- 

 rioide.i, a composite plant of medicinal value. It is 

 called hog-weed because common, and appropriat- 

 ing more than its share of ground in a field ; fal- 

 low-weed, for ityieljds to the plough, disappears by 



cultivating the ground, and seems to thrive best in 

 fallow-ground and neglected places. No reliable 

 information can be gleaned concerning it in the 

 dispensatories and usual medical sources. These 

 do not so much as mention its name. Even 

 Paine's Concentrated Remedies, that gives the prop- 

 erties (irregularly) of over eight hundred plants, 

 mentions Kuhnia fflulinosa, and then refers to four 

 species of Eupatorium ! proving that the author 

 did not understand kuhnia. Its discovered value, 

 then, can be conscientiously claimed by the author 

 of this article, — one, at least, of the best remedies 

 in the materia medica. 



It is a well-known fact, that most tonics are bit- 

 ter; stimulants pungent and warm-tasting; as- 

 tringents " drawing; " narcotics bitter, acrid, or 

 unpleasant. Taste and odor thus become moder- 

 ately safe guides to an experienced judgment 

 in pronouncing on the qualities of a new plant 

 without the safer and more accurate methods 

 of chemistry, which are not always available 

 when in the forest or field, and away from the 

 laboratory. Poisonous plants, too, are generally 

 well known : those that are non-poisonous, not in- 

 imical to health and life, are the only safe ones to 

 be tested by odor and taste. Having had a botan- 

 ical knowledge of kuhnia, and its Order, Compo- 

 sitai, I did not hesitate to taste and examine it 

 critically, with a view to its utility as a med- 

 icine. This was some years since, on coming 

 out of a house where lay several children severely 

 afflicted with dysentery. The horrible tormina 

 and tenesmus demanded that something be done at 

 once for their relief. Opiates and astringents 

 seemed but to aggravate their distresses. I knew 

 the plant was excellent in diarrhoea, why not in 

 acute dysentery? An infusion made by pouring 

 boiling water on the leaves, — an ounce or more of 

 leaves to the pint of water, covering till nearly 

 cool, — was given freely — almost without regard to 

 quantity. The effects were magical. The pains 

 ceased: no blood nor mucus were any longer ob- 

 served in the dejections. Speedy recoveries were 

 the rule. The medicine being cheap and com- 

 mon, the poor could pay a reasonable bill. It warmed 

 the stomach, produced a determination of blood 

 to the surface, promoted sweating, and thus re- 

 lieved the over-gorged colon and small intestines. 

 It seemed also to act as a local auiBsthetic to the 

 painful inflamed mucous surfaces of these organs. 

 As a diffusible stimulant, the patient's muscles 

 were strengthened — no combination of tonics and 

 stimulants could have acted more promptly. In 

 twelve to twenty-four hours convalescence began. 

 During the prevalence of the endemic dysentery 

 in Kokomo in 1862 was the best test of its efficacy. 



One family had lost two of their children. The 

 father prevailed on me to leave my own town, and 

 stay at his house, while the disease lasted in his 

 family. No others died, — a family of six still 

 living at the close of the endemic. Nor did they 

 any longer fear its ravages. l\Iy services were no 

 longer needed; for they had learned to use, success- 

 fully, the remedy. It has been found equally good 

 in cases of atonic dyspepsia, general debility, 

 colic, gastrodynia, and intermittent-fever. The 

 poor man's panacea, — it calms a fever equal to qui- 

 nine, and acts as an antiperiodic; cures a colic as 

 quickly as allspice, ginger, and dioscorein; a 

 stimulant equally as good, and not so unpleasantly 

 warm, as cayenne pepper; a nervous exhilarant 

 little below the best of wine, without its intoxicat- 

 ing qualities; almost a specific in recent colds, 

 catarrh, bronchitis, and croup. Its proper sphere 

 of usefulness, however, is in toning the gastric fol- 

 licles, and giving tonicity to the muscular coat of 

 the stomach and intestines. Taken cold, the in- 

 fusion is a tonic; warm, it is a diaphoretic and 



