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200 THE TECHNICAL PROCEDURES IN FILLING TEETH.

groups, cavity after cavity occurring in close succession or in
numbers together in some particular part of the mouth as in the
molars, the bicuspids or the incisors. They do not occur, how-
ever, in the teeth of as many persons as either of the other
classes. Therefore, on the whole, these cavities are much less
often met with than the proximal or the pit cavities.
In the past, this class of cavities has been the terror of prac-
titioners on account of the rapid destruction of the teeth and
the very constant disposition to recur at the mesial and distal
margins of fillings which seemed good and sufficient at the time
they were made. Yet, there is no other class of cavities so easy
of management when the whole scheme of their causation is
clear in the mind of the operator and he is able to command the
intelligent assistance of his patient. These cavities are on sur-
faces of the teeth most easily reached and cleaned with the tooth
brush. Any one noticing in good time an inclination to begin-
ning decay in any of these positions, may stop its progress com-
pletely in all cases in which the enamel has not been penetrated,
and prevent other decays of this class from beginning by clean-
ing the teeth well four times per day — after each meal and
before retiring— with the brush and water.
BUCCAL SURFACES OF MOLARS.
Description of case 1. Figure 283 represents the buccal
surface of an upper first molar with a beginning decay in its
gingival third. This is a typical representation of the condi-
tions of the enamel at this stage, as it will appear if the rubber
dam is placed and the tooth is cleaned and dried. At three
points centrally to the line of injury from mesial to distal, the
enamel rods are loosening and falling away. The surrounding
enamel is of a whitish gray color, fading out at the margins into
the normal color of the teeth. This change of color is often so
faint that it will escape observation unless the tooth is cleaned
and dried and the condition is especially looked for.
In many cases the line of whitening of the enamel is much
narrower than the one represented in this illustration. This
may be found stretching a similar distance mesio-distally before
there is any sigTi of the falling away of enamel rods forming a
cavity. Sometimes these are very white and easily seen before
the teeth are cleaned and dried, and are spoken of as "chalky"
enamel or chalky decay. In other cases there is a central cavity
through the enamel before there is much spreading of the whit-
ened area. These cavities are apt to bo very sensitive in the first