Page 368 - My FlipBook

36*4

lion for being plugged, which will perfectly complete their
cure, and render them of use to the patient. In the section
on the preservation of the nerves of teeth we wish to pre-
serve and plug, will be found detailed directions for this pur-
pose.

Instruments proper for the Extraction of the Adult Teeth.

It is not my intention to notice the great variety of instru-
ments which have been proposed, and used in the extraction
of the teeth ; I only wish to mention those which are useful
and generally used, and pass over the others in silence. The
instruments at present used by the most judicious and re-
spectable dentists of Europe and this country, are the den-
tist key, and the forceps. Of the former there are several
kinds, of which the improved key of Mr. Fox, possesses the
most advantages ; it is constructed so that the hook can be
placed before the bolster, by which contrivance we can read-
ily extract the dentes sapientia, ; it can be also carried be-
hind the bolster, so as to avoid, if we choose, pressure upon
a diseased and tender gum, opposite to the tooth we purpose
to extract. An objection I have often made to the common
keys is, that in general, the bolster is made too large and often
quite flat, when a proper key should have a small bolster of an
oval shape approaching to round, by which shape when the
hook and bolster are brought to act upon the tooth, the latter
by being oval will carry the tooth out of its socket, by pres-
sing it up or down as the case may be ; but if long and flat,
it presses dead against the tooth without raising it at all, so
that the tooth will be violently dragged out by the action of
the hook alone. Mr. Koecker objects to the use of the key
in nearly all cases, and recommends the forceps.* I concur

* See Koecker, page 341