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434 THE TREATMENT AND FILLING OF ROOT CANALS.

cific disease conditions is selected with a regard to which shall best and
most completely attain a definite end. According to the effects prodnced
n])()n ali)umin the agents under consideration may be placed in two
classes, coagulants and non-coagulants. In the former class are in-
cluded salts of the metals and alcohols ; in the latter, many of the
essential oils.
Mineral acids and the alkalies act by chemically destroying the
albumin. The metallic salts which have been employed or tested as
germicides in pulp canals are the chlorids of zinc and of aluminum, the
bichlorid of mercury, the bichlorid of gold and sodium, the sulfate of
copper, and the nitrate of silver. The salts of copper, silver, and gold
are not adapted on account of the discolorations produced by them.
Mercuric chlorid is open to the same objection ; thus the only metallic
salt having general application is zinc chlorid.
The alcohols employed are the ethylic (commercial) alcohol phenylic
;
alcohol, i. e. carbolic acid, and creosote, with the coal-tar derivatives,
the cresols. In this connection formalin—a 40 per cent, solution of the
gas formaldehyd in water should be mentioned very favorably ; in
dental practice it is reduced to a strength of 3 to 5 per cent.
Preparations of iodin, bromin, and chlorin are all powerful anti-
septics and disinfectants. Bromin is inapplicable owing to its irritat-
ing effects and offensive odor ; chlorin is employed in the form of
hypochlorites ; usually in the solutions called electrozone and mcditrina,
electrolytic products of sea-water. Labarraque's solution of sodium
hypochlorite appears to have fallen into general disuse, as have also the
hyposulfites. The usual form in which iodin is applied is as the
tincture. Iodin trichlorid is said ^ to be five times as strong as mercuric
chlorid as an antiseptic.
The essential oils recommended as antiseptics for employment in
canal and dentin sterilization are those of thyme, cinnamon, cassia,
myrtle, and eucalyptus.
The alkalies employed as sterilizing agents are Schreier's alloy of po-
tassium and sodium, called Kalium-natrium ; sodium carbonate and so-
dium dioxid. The mineral acids which have been recommended are hydro-
chloric and sulfuric, the latter by the method described by Dr. Callahan.^
The gases oxygen and chlorin, in statu nascendi, are employed as
sterilizing agents, the former extensively. When these are applied as
bleaching agents, the sterilization is coineidently accomplished, as
pointed out in the chapter on Bleaching.
Oxvgen is liberated from aqueous and ethereal solutions of hydrogen
dioxid and solutions of sodium dioxid.
^ Langenbach, quoted by Miller, Dental Cosmos, vol. xxxiii. p. 342.
2 Proc. Ohio State Dental Society, 1894.