Diseases of the Teeth and Their Effects

To you who have lain long in your bed, suffering the pains of a stubborn illness whose causes medicine ignored; to you who have grieved and ached, prey to utter ignorance — and, if I may put it so here, a victim of certain obstinate men who do not believe that those hard pearls set in the mouth of every living creature can be a dangerous center, sending from their roots deadly poisons to invade the organs of the body, and above all the weak ones. This has been proven scientifically and practically, as we shall make clear in this talk. Of late the most famous physicians in various parts have awakened to the dangers of these poisons, and have advised their patients, when their cases puzzle them, to visit the clinics of dental surgeons for examination and close scrutiny and the extraction of infected teeth. Some of them have gone to extremes in their fear and wariness of these infected bases, attributing to them every disease whose causes they did not know, and pronouncing sentence that all the molars be rooted out, right or wrong; whereupon the dentist carries out those sentences without guidance and without deliberation — for the matter of extracting molars, or not extracting them, is a decision that must issue from the surgeon of teeth and mouth alone.

Imagine, then, a man who has endured excruciating pains for a long while, and at last inspiration descends upon the treating physician, and he says: no doubt there is a base sending out its poisonous germs — and if this view is correct, then the molars are responsible in the first degree, and so they must be pulled. So this poor deluded fellow arrives with this idea, from which he will not budge; and if the dentist yields to the order without careful examination, the plot between the two clinics is complete: the days pass, the condition remains as it was, and our deluded friend goes home harboring in his soul things and more things against the two doctors. I therefore insist on saying that the operation of pulling molars must be left to the dentist, after every scientific method has been used to make certain of the focus of infection, so as to be rid of it and of the seepage of those malignant microbes by the bloodstream to the various parts of the body, where they wreak havoc first upon the weak organs — such as the eye, the ear, the coverings of the heart and brain, and the nerves of the joints, which is what we call 'joint disease' — and others besides. Here perhaps a young man in the prime of life, enjoying good health, may ask: there has been an abscess in one of my molars for several years, and I have felt nothing. Gently, my good objector, and remember that in your body there is an immunity that shields you and wards off the evil of calamities; but when, for some reason, that latent force in your body weakens, those poisonous exhalations and malignant microbes overcome the defending forces, the dreaded thing occurs, and your mighty body becomes fertile pasture for them. We now ask: what is this circle from which those deadly poisons seep (the focus of infection)? Its seat? Its causes? Its workings?

Questions we shall answer with all brevity. There, upon the roots of molars whose nerves have been stricken — molars sinned against by certain ignorant practitioners who filled them badly and left the way open for those vermin to do their work — for this reason I affirm that the work of the dental surgeon is like the work of the surgeon of the body in point of technical sterilization and observance of the rules of modern medicine in the treatment of teeth, so that that circle, so dangerous to the general health, may not form. This is what we call abscesses at the roots of the molars: some of them find a way to the mouth, eat through the bone, and appear on the gum like a small lentil; and some remain latent upon the roots within their sac, and this is what we call

a blind abscess (Blind Abcess). This may sleep in its place for years, unfelt in the way of pain or ache, but it breathes out its poisons to wherever they settle and begin their deadly work; and the patient knows nothing until one of his eyes has reddened — it may pain him or it may not, and these symptoms return to him from time to time — or until there is a pain in the soles of his feet or in the joints of his hands; and he knows no cause for all this save the well-worn saying: medicine was baffled, so they said, 'It is nerves.'

A girl in the bloom of youth had borne grievous pains and been given all manner of treatments and medicines, but to no avail. I was called to treat her molars while she lay bedridden, unable to make the slightest movement, and I found in her mouth four molars whose nerves had been killed and which had been filled in the customary ways; those dangerous circles had settled upon the roots, sending their dangerous radiations at that poor victim. The four molars were extracted, and it was not long before the girl was cured...

I know a man of middle age who complained of pain in one of his eyes, with a white film over the dark of the eye. He went to an eye specialist and laid his case before him; he was given treatment, and pain and film vanished together. At the very same time the following year the man complained to his doctor of the selfsame first symptoms, and in vain the doctor tried to cure him with all sorts of medicines; so he in turn referred him to me, that I might examine his molars, and the aforementioned symptoms proved to be the result of an abscess in one of the molars of his lower jaw, and they vanished after its extraction.

A lady entered one of the great hospitals to be treated for a disease we call bint al-hara in one of her legs; after a period of treatment she was cured of her disease and returned home. After a while the same disease came back, and she returned to the hospital for treatment until she was cured — and so on to the third time. Then her doctor asked me to examine her molars, and her disease proved to come from two abscesses in her teeth. There are many examples like these which there is no room to mention now.

There are certain doctors who hold a theory different from this one and follow the well-worn saying, 'Pull the tooth and pull its ache.' I am prepared to bring forward names and offer several proofs to establish the first theory and condemn the second — for what we fear in the second case is the sending of the infection to all parts of the body by the bloodstream, and there lies the great catastrophe. If we follow the easy road, clear of every danger threatening our lives, and arm ourselves with a little patience and endurance for a few days, we can treat the acute inflammations and ease their pains.

And if you cannot visit the dentist's clinic for treatment and the relief of pain, then treat yourself in the following manner:

Use ice externally on the aching side, and beware of replacing it with poultices or hot compresses as some prescribe, for these smooth the way for the pus to break out through the face, leaving an ugly, disfiguring mark. Use the following rinse with hot water inside the mouth once every quarter hour: boil poppy and nutmeg and take the extract to mix with the hot water. And there is no harm in using sedative tablets such as aspirin, Aspro, Veganin, and the like.