Page 370 - My FlipBook

36G
the best instrument wc now have for the extraction of a
considerable proportion of the teeth. It is now considered,
as a general rule, proper to apply the hook so as to extract the
teeth outside of the mouth, with the exception in some cases of
the dentes sapientia, and the second grinder, which may be
directed by the judgment of the practitioner, as may all the
others. Great care should be used by the practitioner in ap-
plying the hook, not to allow it to infringe upon the neigh-
boring teeth, as by this means he might loosen if not extract
not only the tooth he intends to extract, but a tooth next
to it. The perpendicular impulse given to the instrument,
either up or down as the case may be, carries the tooth out of
the socket, and prevents the breaking of it, or the sides of the
socket, which from inattention to this is often done. I have
been in the practice of extracting teeth for several years,
and never since I have adopted this mode of using the key,
have I had the misfortune to break or shatter the alveolus, ex-
cept in the very slightest degree. Again, the movement ofthe
instrument should be steady, and not hastily or with a jerk.
This observation at first sight would seem superfluous, as it
would hardly seem that any man of common sense would
be in the habit of operating in this manner. But the fact is
otherwise : there are dentists in this city who after applying
the key, twitch upon the tooth with as sudden a jerk, as an
angler would upon the bite of a trout. Accidents are the
daily consequence of it. It is an old observation that all
operations are performed sufficiently quick, which are per-
formed well, and peculiarly so with regard to the extraction
of a tooth. Mr. Fox mentions the case of a lady, who had
one of the second bicuspides of the lower jaw extracted,
and with a sudden jerk of the instrument : inflammation and
suppuration took place in the socket, she lost the other
bicuspis and two adjoining molar teeth and with the ex-