Page 392 - My FlipBook

388
ed merely, and not carious, has, by its injudicious adoption
and indiscriminate performance, been productive, probably,
of more injurious consequences than any mode of practice,
or any direction ever given by any writer or practitioner of
dental surgery. Almost every dentist who has read Mr. Fox,
has adopted and followed this practice. The pernicious con-
sequences of it are seen almost every da}\
The enamel as we have before remarked, is the protection
which nature has provided for the teeth, and consequently, if
it is removed, they are rendered much less capable of de-
fending themselves against those injurious agencies which we
have before considered, and instead of preventing decay,
this operation, in a vast many cases, becomes a powerful ad-
juvant in the progress of caries. By removing the enamel,
especially when there are decayed teeth, or diseased gums
present, the saliva vitiated by these last causes, acts upon
those teeth which have been filed, with the most destructive
certainty ; and in fact, the file, as far as it goes, assists the
progress of caries towards the lining membrane of the tooth,
and removes that covering which the vitiated saliva might
have acted upon for years without abrading. The separa-
tion in this case, is of very little moment, as the teeth, in
many cases, immediately advance forward, and fill the spaces
made by the file, and are soon in as close a state of contact
as ever, and ten times as liable to decay as before. If the
teeth are separated so much as never to become again in con-
tact, the case is but little better ; for so much of the sub-
stance of the tooth is taken away, as that it is ever after
more or less tender, and liable to be affected by almost any
cause, heat, cold, &c. &c. The appearance of filed teeth is,
at least to me, far from being agreeable. I have seen many
persons' teeth, which, although at the time of the operation,
were perfectly sound, had been filed away so much as to dc-