Page 148 - My FlipBook

FILING THE TEETH

Many persons, perhaps a majority of them, who have passed
judgment in their own minds, on the practice of filing the teeth,
are opposed to the use of the file for the removal of caries in
order to arrest the disease, thinking that the enamel, which
is considered the natural shield of them, is removed by the
operation ; and that the progress of the disease instead of being
arrested, as is designed, is accelerated. And we are perfectly
well aware of the circumstances which have given such cur->
rericy to this opinion. It is founded on the effects observed
to result from the practice of the hundreds of operators, who.
have assumed to practice and to discharge the duties of a pro-
fession, with which they were totally and culpably ignorant.
True it is, that the teeth have too often been injured and
abused, by the practice of indiscriminate filing. We have
ourselves, with regret, too often witnessed the mischievous
effects of such practice to deny it. Yet mark us, it is only
when the use of the file is abused t that such consequences
follow; as when teeth perfectly sound are filed asunder,
iuearly because their sides are in contact, and from that cir-
cumstance may decay there; or, as when they are unskill-:
fully, awkwardly and irregularly filed ; or filed with a harsh