Pennsylvania Association of Dental Surgeons. [Volume: 2, Issue: 3, October, 1860, pp. 150-168]

PROCEEDINGS OF DENTAL SOCIETIES.

161

important parts and functions, as, for instance, organic diseases of the
heart, liver, stomach or intestines, it may perhaps become questionable
as a matter of policy and convenience whether the physician should not
share the case with us; but I opine it never can be a question whether or
not the dentist should or should not be familiar with them.
Dr. McQuillen remarked that he had ever advocated the most extended
curriculum of study on the part of dental practitioners and students; but
had also been disposed at the same time to observe, so far as he was individually concerned, a line of demarkation between the practice of dentistry and medicine. In the observance of this, he had possibly been
disposed to accord more to the practitioner of medicine than he would
actually claim, or there was any occasion on the part of the dentist to
yield.
With regard to the subject under consideration, it is a matter alike
interesting and important, both to the medical and dental practitioner.
The first may be compelled, in his efforts to arrest the progress of disease,
to employ agents which exert a deleterious and destructive influence upon
the teeth, while the latter is called upon not only to observe these effects,
but in addition, if the teeth are not too radically affected, to exercise his
handiwork in remedying the ravages attendant upon the use of such agents.
I[e did not wish to be understood by these remarks as reflecting upon the
medical practitioner for using such agents, as he fully recognized that
where it is a matter of life or death, or where there is a choice between
recovery and long continuance of some chronic affection, it is a matter of
vital importance that the most potent and reliable agent should be administered, however destructive it may prove to the dental organs. But,
when such agents are employed, it must be evident to all that every
precaution should be exercised to prevent or neutralize their action
upon the teeth. Thus it is an important and should be an ever-recognized indication, on the part of the medical practitioner when prescribing
an acid remedy, to accompany it with a prescription for the alkali best
calculated to neutralize the portion which remains in the mouth. It
is to be supposed that such a course would naturally suggest itself to
the mind of every physician, and yet he had been informed by an intelligent druggist that such a thing rarely if ever occurs. Advice may be
given, but it is in that general manner which rarely if ever commands implicit obedience on the part of the patient.
Of the different remedies employed by medical practitioners, one of the
most common is the tincture of the chloride of iron. Now, valuable as this
agent is, when properly employed, the indiscriminate and careless manner
in which it is used by some is highly censurable. IHe had been informed
by the gentleman already referred to, that the wholesale order for this
article from country practitioners far exceeds the average of the orders
for other articles.