Orthodontia, or malposition of the human teeth : its prevention and remedy.

  • Guilford, Simeon Hayden, 1841-1919.
Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Orthodontia, or malposition of the human teeth : its prevention and remedy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    40/244 (page 32)
    ADVISABILITY OF CORRECTION. With our present knowledge in regard to the teeth and their surrounding tissues, and the advancement made of recent years in the multiphcation and perfection of mechan- ical appliances, scarcely any deformity of the mouth and teeth is beyond mechanical remedy. With possibility assured, however, it is most important that we should con- sider carefully the question of advisability, for what is pos- sible may not always be advisable. There are several con- siderations that enter into this question of advisability. AGE. The age of the patient has much to do with the advisa- bility of any proposed operation for correction. Early in life, when the alveolar tissues have not yet reached the hard- ness and density of structure which they will attain at a later period, they are more easil}^ operated upon. They are elastic and readily yield to pressure, and at the same time under the influence of this pressure they are more quickly resorbed or bent and thus give way to the tooth that is being moved. This feature of early youth is an important and valuable one in that it renders an operation for correc- tion more easy of accomplishment, but while the soft and easily yielding ];)rocess favors the operation, it is at the same time a tissue poorly fitted to resist the influences which often operate to again displace the tooth. For this reason, a tooth moved at an early age may be liable to subsequent displace- ment when the pressure caused by the eruption of the suc- ceeding teeth is brought to bear upon it. After maturity, we have the conditions exactly reversed. The denser and more perfectly calcified process yields less