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286 THIRD PERIOD—MODERN TIMES

vanity or because possessed by the opinion that gold has special virtues,
will not have their tooth stopped except with it, not unfrequently find
dentists who, as the saying goes, content them and cozen them by using
leaf tin or lead colored yellow, and making them pay for it as gold
stopping!
Fig. 8o

Some of the dental files used by Fauchard. The little square figure represents a small
grooved wedge destined to be inserted in large interdental spaces, in order to give more
firmness to the teeth to be filed.
The leaf metals were introduced and compressed into the carious
cavities by means of three kinds of pluggers, which would nowadays
be considered altogether insufficient and unfit for the purpose, but which
then, nevertheless, served to produce excellent stoppings. The author
speaks^ of a lead stopping which had lasted in perfect condition for forty
years.
' Vol.
ii, p. 71.