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them in the extraction of front teeth, that the judicious operator
will seldom fail of success. When we have determined upon
the use of the forceps, the patient seated, and the gums separa-
ted from the tooth as we have before mentioned and directed,
we must apply a pair of forceps of a size which will readi-
ly hold and embrace the tooth, but not so large as to touch
the neighboring teeth, when with a firm and steady motion,
we must carry the tooth to the outside so far, as to loosen it
is held in the socket, and
from the membrane by which it
then by carrying the foreceps in a perpendicular direction,
we shall be able at once to pass the tooth out of the socket.
We must remember not to embrace the tooth so tight as to
crush it, which we are in danger of doing, if we are not
aware that we are liable to this accident. In extracting the
front teeth, especially irregular or supernumerary ones, we
may give a slight rotatory motion to the tooth, by which
means, as there is but one fang to these teeth, we shall
loosen them, and at once be able to carry them out of their
sockets.
Various instruments have been contrived to extract the
teeth in a perpendicular direction, but none have been as
yet invented, which on trial have been found applicable to
common practice. Nearly all only tend to demonstrate the
superiority of the key. In extracting the teeth of young
children we need not in general divide the gums, as the lac-
eration of their gums if the teeth are extracted with the
forceps will be slight, and their fears are so excited upon
having their gums lanced, that we often find it excedingly
difficult to apply the instrument for the extraction of the
teeth. The moment of deliberation with them should be
the moment of extracting the tooth.