Bladder Infections: Irritations of the bladder were frequently found to be caused by dental infections. One such case involved a man of 65 who was so distressed with cystitis that for five years he had been unable to leave his home because he had to void urine every 30 to 60 minutes or his distress was unbearable. His sleep was particularly disturbed. This man's staphyloccal bladder infection improved in 24 hours upon removal of two lower infected molar teeth. In two weeks he was able to retain urine for five hours.

Chorea - Hyperactivity St. Vitus dance and chorea are old technical terms for what we call hyperactivity or "attention deficit disorder" today. The dictionary definition is: "irregular, spasmodic involuntary movements of the limbs and/or facial muscles." So you do not assume this is a condition only of modern times, I will draw your attention to the following case. The patient's history gives such important information for parents worried about the possibility of the presence of similar focal infection in their children I am going to quote it just as it appeared in Volume.

"Case No. 458 - the patient nine years of age, was brought by his mother with the following history. As the tears streamed down her cheeks, she said," Why have my husband and I been cursed with such a wicked boy? The teacher sent hims home with a note saying that if he returns she will leave the school.

He cannot play with children without slapping them in the face or some other unpardonable violence without provocation. He does this also to his father and to me. while keeping him out of school, since we have to I thought it would be good time to have his teeth taken care of, etc., etc.

We made a few studies of the boy and soon found he had largely lost his power of coordination. He had a very sharply developed symptom group chorea with an exaggeration of the irritability phase. While undertaking to make roentgenograms of his teeth, he would strike me in the face without any provocation.

In addition to making these studies, we make motion pictures of his lack of coordination. It was apparently impossible for him to sit still, and every moment he was twitching and jerking and, as such patients do, would try to turn an involuntary muscular contraction into a voluntary one.

He would find his knee jerking up, and, in order to avoid the embarrassment, would turn it into a kick; and similarly with his hands. If he had something in his hand at the time the involuntary reflex occurred, and his hand started swinging, he would let the article fly as though he had intended that to be the movement. We do not wonder that his teacher had reached the limit of her capacity to control, for no ordinary power could control him, not even his own mind. We explained to the mother that her boy was not a bad boy; that he had an infection of the cortex of the brain,probably largely coming from his infected teeth; and that when his infection was removed he probably would return to normal.

With very great difficulty, because of his extreme condition, we succeeded in removing the deciduous teeth which were deeply carious, several of which had infected pulps. These were cultured and rabbits were inoculated, several of which developed very acute involvements of the central nervous system; and we had four at one time of this series with such marked central nervous system disturbance that with little excitement they would fall on their sides.

Sections made from the cortex of the brain of one such rabbit showed multiple petechial pin point bleeding points and diplococcal zone hemorrhages, which would lead to irritability and impetuosity, and even violence, all of which so often make up the picture of chorea.

Copyright (c) 2007 Sung Lee, and George Meinig D.D.S