Page 279 - My FlipBook

VITAL PHENOMENA IN CARIES. 149
many years of what has been fairly close, careful observation in
clinical practice, and always with an earnest desire to relieve
patients of suffering in the necessary cutting in the preparation
of cavities. In all of this time, and up to the present, the results
have been so poor, or so uncertain, that, as compared with skillful
use of well-selected cutting instruments, well tempered and
always sharp, they have not been a success. I do not mean to
say by this that pain has not been obtunded and made less
severe. But, through fussing with such obtundants as have been
used, the dissipation of energy by the operator, the repetition of
partial failure and disappointment to the patient, the increased
time employed, and, finally, the amount of injury that has been
done, prompts me to say that thus far the operator of fair skill
will do his patient the better service if he lets obtundants alone
almost entirely. Thus far, the man who bends his energies to
developing the most thorough systemization of the use of cut-
ting instruments and personal skill in controlling patients suffer-
ing pain, will dismiss his patient at the end of an operation in
better condition than he could possibly do with the use of any
local or general obtundant at present known.
In saying this, I am not unmindful of the apparent fact
that a few men have seemed, personally, to have developed a
very successful use of some particular form of obtundant and
seem to have done much good by its use. Many will remember
the great craze caused by the introduction of cataphoresis —
the electric application of cocain — to this purpose a few years
ago. It was shown conclusively that pain could be relieved, or
even abolished by this method, and thousands of men were send-
ing orders for the necessary apparatus. Soon it was found that
in the hands of the average man, or even of those much above
the average, great harm was being done which far outweighed
the advantages. Under the stimulus of demand, manufacturers
had turned out an immense supply of the apparatus that became
so much junk, practically, over night. Yet, I know a few men
who used and are still using that method to great advantage and
without the evil results that have befallen most men who under-
took its use. But it was incapable of assimilation by the mass
of even the better professional men.
Other obtundants have been heralded, with less ostentation,
perhaps have been tried by hundreds of dentists and then faded
out of the memory of men. Such has been the fate of every
obtundant for sensitive dentin, except a few now on trial, that
has come forward during seventy or more years of dental prac-