Miscellany. [Volume: 2, Issue: 10, May, 1861, pp. 581-584]

582

THE DENTAL COSMOS.

influence of the ether, and the operation completed. It was not only my
opinion, but that of at least two of the hospital surgeons present, that
had it been chloroform instead of ether, the case would not have terminated so favorably."
In the course of a review of a work on " Chemistry in its Relations to
Physiology and Medicine," (Ibid.,) it is stated that the author-Dr. Daydivides the fluids of the body into five groups, and that "under the first
group the saliva is first considered; and after the chemical properties of
the secretion from each gland separately, and of the mixed saliva, have
been pointed out, the author takes up the question of their physiology.
Dr. Day does not, we think, give sufficient prominence to the experiments
of Bernard relative to the uses of the parotid, submaxillary, and sublingual saliva separately. Most of our readers are doubtless acquainted
with the results which this physiologist obtained, showing that the secretion of the parotid gland is mainly of use in facilitating mastication, that
of the submaxillary in assisting taste, and that of the sublingual in promoting deglutition. The influence of saliva in causing the conversion of
starch into sugar is affirmed by Dr. Day; and though there is no doubt
that it does effect this change out of the body, and to some extent in the
mouth, we doubt whether Dr. Day does not go too far when he says that
it is almost universally admitted that the principal use of the salivary
secretion is to promote the conversion of the amylaceous portion of the
food into dextrine, sugar, and lactic acid, and thus to promote its absorption. This view is objected to by several of the most eminent physiologists of the world; and though there are some facts which seem to support it, there are others, again, which go to show that the power to effect
the change in question is incidental, and of no practical importance whatever. The matter is not settled, and physiologists have still an ample
field for research before the true action of the saliva in this respect can be
ascertained."
The following summary of a case of the removal of the inferior maxilla
for osteo-sarcoma is given in the Am. Jour. Med. Sci., "DR. J. R.
DIcKSON, Prof. Surg. in Univ. of Queen's Coll., Kingston, C. W., reports
(British Am. Jour., Feb. 1861) a case of this in a man sixty years of
age, having a rapidly increasing malignant osteo-sarcornatous tumor, extending along the entire left half of the inferior maxilla. The operation
was performed on the 18th of June, 1855, the patient being partially
under the influence of chloroform. The case went on favorably, and on
the 22d of July the patient was discharged, apparently cured. On the
13th of the following December the patient returned, with a reappearance
of the disease in the cicatrix, and on the 16th of March, 1856, death terminated his sufferings, nearly nine months after the operation."
The same publication gives from the Gaz. Med. de Paris the following
instance of extirpation of the entire parotid: " M. MARZOLO relates
(Gazetta Medica Italiana) a case of a woman fifty years of age, in whom
he extirpated, he asserts, the entire parotid, preserving the facial nerve
and the external carotid artery. In six weeks the cure was complete, and
eleven years afterward she remained in perfect health, presenting no indication of a return of the disease."
In his correspondence from Edinburgh to the Amer. Med. Times, DR.
DAVID P. SMITH writes that "PROFESSOR MILLER remarked that, in
cases of hanmorrhage after the extraction of a tooth, he felt warranted by
his experience in saying that the very best possible thing you could do