e washed night and morning with a tumbler of
tepid water, containing from ten to twenty drops of the tincture of
myrrh, and the same quantity of spirits of camphor; or the following
form may be used:--

Alum, one drachm and a half;
Tincture of myrrh, two drachms;
Camphor mixture, five ounces and a half.--Mix.

ACIDS.--The use of acids to the teeth cannot be too strongly deprecated:
they decompose their substance, and lead to their rapid decay. Hence
the whiteness produced by acid tooth-powders and washes is not less
deceitful than ruinous in its consequences. As has been just observed,
they perform all that their vendors promise, causing the teeth, for a
little while, to become very white and beautiful in their appearance,
but, at the same time, injuring them irremediably: the enamel becomes
gradually decomposed, the bone of the tooth exposed, and its death is
the inevitable consequence.

It is therefore of great importance when acid medicines are ordered
for children that they should be taken through a glass tube, to prevent
their coming in contact with the teeth. From a want of this precaution,
I know a lady (and there are many such instances) who once had as sound
and fine a set of teeth as any one could boast of, but from this cause
has had nearly the whole of the upper row destroyed. She was in
delicate health: it was judged requisite that she should take for a
considerable time (with other medicines) sulphuric acid; but the glass
tube was not thought of, and the consequences followed which have been
described.

CALOMEL.--This medicine, as it is frequently given, alone, or in the
little white powders, in infancy and childhood, by mothers and nurses,
is productive of serious and indeed irremediable injury to the teeth.
"The immoderate use of mercury in early infancy produces, more perhaps
than any other similar cause, that universal tendency to decay, which,
in many instances, destroys almost every tooth at an early age. It is
certainly not unimportant to bear this fact in mind, in the
administration of this sovereign remedy, this panacea, as many appear
to consider it, in infantile diseases."[FN#26]

[FN#26] Bell on the Teeth.

HEAT AND COLD.--The teeth are exceedingly apt to suffer from sudden
variations of temperature. Fluids, therefore, should never be taken
into the mouth so hot or so cold as to produce the slightest pain; and,
for the same reason, the water with which the mouth is cleansed