Page 377 - My FlipBook

MANAGEMENT OP CHILDREN'S TEETH. 235

MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN'S TEETH.
ILLUSTRATIONS: FIGURES 172-186.
The conditions calling for differences in the treatment of
caries in children's teeth and the management of cases in them,
in comparison with adults, are due to childhood purely. Caries
in children's teeth is not different from caries in the teeth of
adults. An inflamed tooth pulp or an alveolar abscess is the
same in its nature in the deciduous tooth of the child as in the
permanent tooth of the adult. So far as the tissues of the teeth
are concerned, we may make fillings in children's teeth just the
same as we make fillings in the adult's teeth. The tissues of
the teeth are hard enough ; they are strong enough. The differ-
ences we must make in operating do not lie in the tissues of the
teeth, but are differences due to childhood. We are handling
immature persons, whose nervous systems, power of reasoning
and of self-control are not yet developed, and we have all of the
difficulties that belong to this period of life.
The child is a bundle of impulses, each of which is ready to
break into action without notice or restraint. Much too fre-
quently the dentist's first meeting with the child is when it has
been wrought up by pain until its nerve endings are all on the
alert ready to take fright at the least suggestion of further suf-
fering.
Children are quick to discover a failure to perform a prom-
ised service, and if that failure has resulted in pain to them in the
attempted operation, or if the suffering, the relief of which was
sought, continues, the child-thought is that it has been injured or
deceived. They are not much disposed to excuse an operator for
difficulties their own actions, or their resistance, have imposed.
Their resentment is quick and sharp, and usually without reserve
or concealment. On the other hand, they are just as quick to
recognize a success. A child who has been tortured by pain and
has rebelled and fought against a painful operation for its relief,
will, after finding the promised relief and comfort, have a warm
smile of confidence for the person who conferred the benefit and
readily forget the pain inflicted. Such is the nature of the child.
Children act from impulse rather than by processes of reasoning.
Touch them right and they are easy of control; when touched
wrong, they flash like powder. The important questions in deal-
ing with the diseases of children's teeth that differ from dealing