Notes on dental practice / by Henry C. Quinby.

  • Quinby, Henry C.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on dental practice / by Henry C. Quinby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/240 page 14
    better to cover the arsenical dressing with plaster of Paris, as this will adhere to the dentine better than the sandarac. The plaster should be mixed with hot water, and a few fibres of cotton may be mingled with it to give it more strength. If the dressing is quite secure in the tooth, it cannot do any harm to let it remain for a week; but if it is not very secure, owing to the form of the cavity, it may be removed in twelve or twenty-four hours. In any case, however, the tooth should be seen again in about a week or ten days, and then the pulp cavity should be thoroughly laid open, and all broken rough edges of the tooth cut away in order to facilitate cleanliness, and prevent, as much as possible, the lodgment of food, for the tooth must be left without a stopping. It cannot be treated as we should treat those of a later period, by removing the pulp and filling the roots, unless we are quite sure that there has not been any absorption of the roots to widen the apical foramina, and thus render a tight filling im- possible. Mr. Tomes tells us that the roots of some of these teeth are not fully developed until the child is four and a half years of age ; we may therefore be quite sure that the period of time between perfect formation and the commencement of absorption is very limited, so that, practically, we may say it does not exist for the success of this operation. It is better, therefore, to leave the tooth without a filling, but so shaped that lodgments of food may be easily removed, and the neighbouring teeth suffer no injury. What remains of the pulp will, of course, pass through
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3