Excerpt from The Dental Advertiser, 1886, Vol. 17: A Quarterly Journal Devoted to the Advancement of the Dental Profession

Not long Since I had occasion to remove nine teeth for a patient who would not take chloroform or nitrous oxide, and' yet who dreaded the pain, although he had been accustomed to quietly endure whatever was necessary in operations on his teeth. I proposed the use of cocaine. He made no objection, but expressed himself as very Skeptical as to the result. I confess I was not completely assured myself, but, procuring a freshly-prepared four-per-cent. Solution, I injected the gum on both Sides of the tooth - labial and lingual - eight to ten minims, and after waiting about ten minutes, to my great satisfaction, and his enthusiastic delight, I extracted the tooth absolutely without pain. I proceeded to remove two more at that Sitting, and the effect was the same, and two days afterward extracted the remaining six in the same manner. There was one observation I made in this case which I note here: the subse quent irritation and soreness was much more severe than usual in such cases, indicating that cocaine is more or less an irritant of the soft tissues. Shortly after this, I had another case where it was necessary to remove the right superior first and second molars. The patient said she felt the pain slightly - not worth speaking about.

I had a case of 'chronic abscess (of several years standing) of the left superior lateral incisor root, filled. An examination through the Sinus dis closed quite an extensive pocket extending down half the length of the root. It was necessary in the treatment of this to break up the sac, and with the proper instruments remove any deposit that might have formed on the root, an operation which, if thorough, is necessarily painful. Without consulting the patient I injected the cavity full Of cocaine, and now witnessed a curious physiological phenomenon. The patient, an ex tremely intelligent lady, in some alarm asked what I had done, and said I must have used an anaesthetic, for she felt so drowsy. I explained, and said its effects were purely local, but she Said it could not be so in her case, as she felt the drowsy effect in a very marked manner, which, by the way, did not pass entirely off for a half hour. The local effect was all that could be desired, the operation being entirely painless, and I will say in passing, as it may be Of some interest, I effected a complete cure of the abscess, but not until I resorted to a tent, all Other methods failing.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.