Page 270 - My FlipBook

268 DENTAL MEDICINE.
vey the current. For this purpose it should be bifurcated at the
end of the handle, the arms of sufficient length for convenience
in operating. At the end of these solder small disks about the
size of a dime. The handle and arms must be insulated to pre-
vent the current passing off at any other point than the disks.
Cover the disks with thin pads of fine sponge. A cylinder
electrode, also covered with fine sponge or cloth, is the proper
one for the hand. Moisten each with saline water. Another
method is to attach one pole of the battery to the extracting for-
ceps, the handles of which are well insulated, the other pole being
held in the hands of the patient. As soon as the forceps come
in contact with the tissues about the tooth the circuit is com-
pleted, and the electrical effect produced, which is often painful.
A committee of the College of Dentists, England, in a report
upon the anaesthetic value of electricity, were unanimous that in
no case was local anaesthesia produced by such currents, but that
the effects were due to " diversion of sensation, less difficulty of
extraction as compared with other extractions, syncope more or
less marked, and differences in methods of operating." (See
Electricity as a Therapeutic Means, etc.)
Obtunding mixtures, consisting of a combination of cocaine,
eucaine, tropacocaine, chloretone, pyrethrum, aconite, chloral,
veratria and alcohol, or chloroform, aconite, belladonna, opium
and carbolic acid, etc., have been employed to produce local
anaesthesia, and in many cases with satisfactory results. (See rec-
ipes for obtunding mixtures and local anaesthetics.) For, although
entire insensibility to pain cannot in all cases be brought about,
yet some diminution of it may be effected by the use of such
agents. They have the merit, at least, of being less dangerous
than the general anaesthetics. Such topical pain-obtunding mixtures
are best applied to the parts about the neck and over the root of a
tooth by means of a simple apparatus, devised by Von Bonhorst.
It consists of two small metallic cups, attached to the free ends
of a spring some seven inches long, and which contain sponges
to hold the liquid. When used, the sponges in the cups are sat-
urated with the obtunding mixture and applied by pressing them
on the gum on each side of the tooth to be removed, where they