Oral pathology and therapeutics : a systematic presentation of the subject from the standpoint of modern therapeutics / by Elgin Ma Whinney.

Ma Whinney, Elgin.

Date:: 1905

Credit: Oral pathology and therapeutics : a systematic presentation of the subject from the standpoint of modern therapeutics / by Elgin Ma Whinney. 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.

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$PuliJ Capping. History. Favorable and Unfavorable Cases. ^Methods of Pulp Capping. history. In looking over the literature I find that men have long been cap- ping pulps. I find records of pulp capping as far back as 1850. In that early day men knew nothing scarcely of how to treat diseased pulps and fill root-canals, so palliative measures were used until the aching tooth was quiet: then fillings were made, sometimes without even linmg the cavitv. ]\Iost of their cases died and suppurated. Then they either bored a hole underneath the gum margin or extracted the tooth. A little later than this, in about 1858. men began to cap pulps with oxychloride of zinc, and from that early time until this the subject has engaged the attention of many experimenters. Almost all sorts of materials have been used— lead, tin. asbestos, varnishes, gutta-percha, oxyphosphate. all of these have had their adherents. In 1888 I remember hearing this subject dis- cussed before the American and Southern Dental Societies, which met in joint session in Louisville. There seemed to be a very unanimous opin- ion then that failures were had more frequently than success. I remem- ber well the remarks of Dr. Storey, of Dallas, Tex. He stated that he had taken up the then prevalent fad of capping pulps and had used all the accepted materials, and in the next few years had more business than he could possibly attend to. and most of it was caring for putrescent pulps and abscesses in teeth whose pulps he had previously successfully capped. AMiile this has not been my experience, yet I have capped many pulps, a majoritv of Avhich have been failures. I have tried to study out the causes of these failures, with the result that I now cap comparatively few exposed pulps, and those under the most favorable circumstances, which circumstances I have already stated to you. Many men report suc- cessful cases of capping who have not the opportunity of following them up. Cases leave us when we are unsuccessful and we never learn of our failures. I know I am called upon frequently to treat cases where pulps were previously capped by others. These cases sometim.es go on for vears and give no trouble. I have had cases under direct observation for three and four years; I was able to know that the pulp was alive dur- ing that time, and then all at once, without warning, trouble begins. There are men who claim, to be able to remove a portion of the pulp$