Page 12 - My FlipBook

dental science and dental art their proudest ta'iumphs and brightest
laurels. But with all our trust and faith, our veneration and love, for
gold as a restorer and preserver of teeth, vv^hile it is yet, and has ever
been through a long professional life, our "mainstay" and "sheet-
anchor," it must be confessed and acknowdedged that gold, while in-
comparably the best-known material that nature, science, or art has
yet supplied, is not the '•'•ideal" tooth-filling: it is wanting in homo-
geneity it forms no adhesion to tooth tissue or cavity walls ; and its
;
color, when placed in a human tooth, is out of harmony with nature
and with art ; and gold, w^hen used as a tooth-filling, should never be
unnecessarily exposed or rendered needlessly conspicuous in the
human mouth.
It is true that the demands of tooth salvation with our present means
and resources often impose the hard and stern necessity of doing
violence to the expressions of nature, — our great " model and master-
piece," — and of perverting and infracting the rules and laws of art,
of harmony, and taste.
—
To save a human tooth, gold being our surest reliance,— we place
upon its labial or other exposed surfaces a glittering or a shimmering
yellow spot that offends the eye, and changes its whole expression.
This we do as a choice of evils, as our best effort for the preservation
of organs of priceless value ; and we do Tvisely and we//, though we
secui'e safety, comfort, and usefulness at the expense of harmony and
beauty.
We sometimes, with more or less success, make a compromise with
what are technically known as " porcelain inlays," secured by the zinc
cements, and matching in color and shades the natural teeth ; and this
practice deserves our commendation as an sesthetie advance^ and should
be more generally accepted and employed.
But, sirs, what a boon to humanity, what a benefaction to dental
science and practice, would be the discovery of the long sought and
long hoped for '•''ideal" tooth-filling, — plastic, cementitious, homo-
geneous, harmonizing in color and shade with the teeth in which it
might be placed, unshrinking and unexpansive^ unaflected by the secre-
tions of the oral cavity and crystallizing to hardness and durability,
imperishable as the tissues, the dentine, and enamel from nature's
laboratory! Of what this ideal tooth-filling shall consist, in what
alembic or crucible it shall be found, I grieve and lament to say, /can-