Page 125 - My FlipBook
P. 125
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Plugging the Teeth. 105
"By this beautiful and useful operation, carious teeth may
be preserved for many years; inmost instances, during the
remainder of life ; and, not unfrequently, from ten to twenty
teeth may be effeGtually preserved by this operation, in the
same individual." Koecker, page 381.
" There is no subject connected with dental surgery, of more
importance than that of stopping. There is none better de-
serving the attention of the student, nor is there any in which
the dentist may more successfully display his professional
skill.
teeth, was undoubtedly practiced in very early times, as personal appear-
ance and ornament have ever had considerable influence with mankind.
It was certainly practiced among the Greeks and Romans, and even by
the Egyptians and Arabians. In their medical works are also found direc-
tions for the performance of some operations for the cure of the diseases of
the teeth, gums and sockets; but we find very little said of the proper sur-
gical means to be employed for the prevention or cure of decay. They
never plugged decaying teeth until the disease had formed large hole3
in them, when they plugged them with lead or gummy cements, without
half extirpating the decaying and dead parts. Hollow, aching teeth,
they generally used to plug with lead, previously to the" performance of
the operation of extraction, with their formidable instruments, in order to
render the tooth less liable to break.
About the commencement of the seventeenth century, the dental art
began to be practiced in Europe as a distinct profession, but not with that
success which attends the operations of thorough bred dentists of the
present day. In America, forty years ago, it was scarcely practiced or
known.
In olden times all surgical operations were performed by menials,
under the directions of the physicians, who were priests and poets as
well as physicians, such operations being contrary to the tenets of their
religion, as Well as beneath their dignity. It was not lawful for them to
defile their sacred persons by taking the life of any animal, or even let-
ting blood. Indeed, it is only about one hundred years since the bright
star of surgery, which now shines with such dazzling splendor, emerged
from the clouds of darkness that, had ever enveloped it. The surgeon of
the present day, guided by that intimate knowledge of the relative
structures of the human frame, which he can only obtain and retain by
constant conversation with the dead, attacks with success, the most
formidable local disease, with which, the surgeons of past days did not
dare to interfere. He even pursues it so near the very vitals of the body,
that a careless cut of the thickness of a wafer would prove instant
death ; and thus cheats grim death of its victim, and rescues thousand's
from an untimely grave. Here we see illustrated the great benefits to
be derived to mankind by the cultivation of practical sciehcej divested of
theory and hyphothesis, *
Plugging the Teeth. 105
"By this beautiful and useful operation, carious teeth may
be preserved for many years; inmost instances, during the
remainder of life ; and, not unfrequently, from ten to twenty
teeth may be effeGtually preserved by this operation, in the
same individual." Koecker, page 381.
" There is no subject connected with dental surgery, of more
importance than that of stopping. There is none better de-
serving the attention of the student, nor is there any in which
the dentist may more successfully display his professional
skill.
teeth, was undoubtedly practiced in very early times, as personal appear-
ance and ornament have ever had considerable influence with mankind.
It was certainly practiced among the Greeks and Romans, and even by
the Egyptians and Arabians. In their medical works are also found direc-
tions for the performance of some operations for the cure of the diseases of
the teeth, gums and sockets; but we find very little said of the proper sur-
gical means to be employed for the prevention or cure of decay. They
never plugged decaying teeth until the disease had formed large hole3
in them, when they plugged them with lead or gummy cements, without
half extirpating the decaying and dead parts. Hollow, aching teeth,
they generally used to plug with lead, previously to the" performance of
the operation of extraction, with their formidable instruments, in order to
render the tooth less liable to break.
About the commencement of the seventeenth century, the dental art
began to be practiced in Europe as a distinct profession, but not with that
success which attends the operations of thorough bred dentists of the
present day. In America, forty years ago, it was scarcely practiced or
known.
In olden times all surgical operations were performed by menials,
under the directions of the physicians, who were priests and poets as
well as physicians, such operations being contrary to the tenets of their
religion, as Well as beneath their dignity. It was not lawful for them to
defile their sacred persons by taking the life of any animal, or even let-
ting blood. Indeed, it is only about one hundred years since the bright
star of surgery, which now shines with such dazzling splendor, emerged
from the clouds of darkness that, had ever enveloped it. The surgeon of
the present day, guided by that intimate knowledge of the relative
structures of the human frame, which he can only obtain and retain by
constant conversation with the dead, attacks with success, the most
formidable local disease, with which, the surgeons of past days did not
dare to interfere. He even pursues it so near the very vitals of the body,
that a careless cut of the thickness of a wafer would prove instant
death ; and thus cheats grim death of its victim, and rescues thousand's
from an untimely grave. Here we see illustrated the great benefits to
be derived to mankind by the cultivation of practical sciehcej divested of
theory and hyphothesis, *
