plantain, houfeleek, and those of the leffer wild daily, with honey of rofes; in this you dip a linen cloth and foment the tumours therewith.

2. If the tumours or ulcers be more obftinate, make a decoction of birthwort and gentian; the decoction fhould be more of lefs ftrong, according to the intensity of the evil.

3. If thefe are still infufficient, order decoctions of barley, with honey of roses and lime-water; or fyrup of mulberries, in common or vulnerary water: or diffolve fome of Lanfranc's Collyrium in red wine; or, finally, pour a few drops of the fpirit of vitriol, in a fufficient quantity of honey. With one or other of thefe, according to the ftate of the patient, the ulcers are to be touched, and they commonly yield. Our peasants frequently and fuccefsfully employ olive-oil for this purpose, which proves beneficial, because it is deterfive; but it'fhould be ufed warm. For the fame intention may be ufefully employed, oil of turnips, or rape ofl. The Thrushes generally yield to thefe remedies; but if they ftill fubfift, the nurfe fhould

be

be changed, and another employed, whose breast-milk is recent, diluent and cooling.

CHAP. XIII.

Of DENTITION, and its Confequences.

AMONG all the disorders of children, this is the most peculiar to them. Tho' they are commonly born without teeth; yet some have them when they first come into the world; but this does not hold univerfally, fince in all my practice, I have seen but two examples of it.

Infants begin to have teeth about the feventh, eight or ninth month, and they rarely are without this fympton, till the twelfth. The dentes incifovi, particularly, of the infe rior jaw, first appear, commonly two in number, soon after two more in the upper jaw, and fo forth fucceffively. Yet I have fome times obferved four in the lower, before any appear'd in the upper jaw. The dentes incifivi, thus prefent themselves by pairs, or one by one. In two months afterwards, the dentes canini grow in the fame order. About

the

the fixteenth, feventeenth or eighteenth month, four of the dentes molares, force them felves out in both jaws, on each fide; two in the upper, and two in the lower jaw; in four months after thefe dentes molares appear, more of them advance, in fome fooner, in others later. About the fourth year, others till about the feventh year, all, exappear, cept the four hindmost of the dentes molares, become confpicuous; but these hardly appear before the twenty-first or twenty-fe cond whence they are ftiled the teeth year, of wisdom. At the feventh, eight, and sometimes the ninth year, fome of the dentes in? cifivi, or more frequently of the canini, or foremost molares fall.

After this general account of the teeth, we fhall now confider their diforders. When the teeth therefore begins to break out, as many tumours, or excrefcences, appear Hi both jaws, as there are teeth ready to make their eruption, fo that the jaws, in the fans guage of the good women, are double. Thefe tumours daily increafing, bring on an eryfipelatous inflammation, attended with great itching pain and heat. At length the

middle

middle of each tumour grows whitish, a tranfparent veficle is formed on it, and the extremity of the advancing tooth appears. At this time, the tumid jaw finks, but you are to observe, that the greater and larger the tooth is, the more violent the pain will be. Hence the dentes molares caufe more pain than the dentes canini, and thefe than the dentes incifioi. This appearance of the teeth is frequently brought about by nature with but a few troublesome symptoms, nay, fometimes without any at all; though at other times the diforder is accompanied with thofe of the most violent kind.

To judge the better of the nature of this diforder, the ftructure of the teeth, and of the cavities in which they are lodg'd, is to be confider'd. In each jaw-bone there are as many cavities, called alvcoli, as there are teeth; the cavity intended for each being proportioned exactly to its dimenfions. In tender infants there are germina, or buds, refembling almonds by their confiftence and colour, fometimes three or four in each focket, the one over the other, efpecially, in the cavities of the dentes canini and'incivifi, which provident nature has intended

for

for the future teeth. These grow hard, particularly the fuperior ones, till they acquire the ordinary confiftence of teeth; the moft advanced of these germina being hard, commonly fall about the feventh year; either because their dimenfions are contracted, and confequently grow too little to have any connection with the fockets; or because they are pushed out by degrees by the subsequent germina. Sixteen of the foremost teeth, or of the incivifi and canini, commonly fall by this mechanism. The troublesome symptoms which they induce, mostly spring, 1. From a thin bony lamina of the jaw, which the teeth by their eruption are to overcome. 2. The Periosteum which covers this lamina, 3. The gums which cover the whole. These obstacles offer themselves to the eruption of the teeth, which they frequently overcome, without any bad fymptoms, efpecially, if the oppofing parts above mentioned are foft, the growing teeth fmall, and only one, or few of them at a time pierceing through: but dangerous fymptoms are excited, if many teeth grow up at once, through the equal growth of their germina, or if the teeth are very large and blunt; for fmall