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21G HISTORY OF DENTAL SURGERY

work wliicli j^hould always be nuuntaiiied. Unless it cau be sliown that the
luuiiiniifying method is something more than a deceptive device for postpon-
ing the eventual development of apical disturbances due to ultimate failure
of the protective character of the chemical applications to the pulp, it should
be undertaken with extreme caution until the records of successful use have
carried it beyond the purely experimental stage.
"The view here presented is not intended to be condemnatory of the meth-
ods under consideration, nor of the priucij^le upon wliieh they are based, but
merely as cautionary against a general adoption of them as methods of rou-
tine practice at this stage of their history."
Dr. A. W. Harlan, of Chicago, read a paj^er on "Pulp-Digestion" before
the International Dental Congress at Paris, in 1900 ("Cosmos," Vol. XLII, p.
I"i72), in which he advocated the use of papain (made from the leaves of the
paw paw, or Carica paya) for digesting dead pulp tissue. (It has no action
on a living pulp.) One grain oi papain is made into a thick paste with
glycerol and a drop of hydrochloric acid solution, one to 300. "It
is best to remove all tissue m siglit, and then pack the roots and pulp-
chamber full of the jiaste and seal with oxysulphate or oxyphosphate of zinc,
and let it renuiin witiiout interference five to eight days. In this way tlie
patient siift'ers no uneasiness, and there is no risk of periceuu'ntal irritation.
Putrefaction does not take place in the presence of a solution nuide in glycerol.
It is needless to remarlc that this operation must be done under antiseptic
precautions from beginning to linish."
Papaiii had been previously suggested for this purpose by H. Alexander
Francis, in the "Lancet" for July, 1893 ("Cosmos," Vol. XXXYI, p. 249, 1894,
"Hints & Queries"). He recommends "papain as a selective caustic because
(if its known activity as a digester and destroyer of dead and diseased animal
matter. It is a jtowder and non-poisonous. It has been successfully used
by insufllation for removing the false membrane of diphtheria; also in the
treatment of lupus, and tuberculous ulceration of tlie vocal cords. The drug
possesses projierties which seem to indicate a possible usefulness in dental
practice for digesting and removing the shreds of pulp tissue after devitali^a-
tion in tortuous and inaccessible root-canals."

PULP CANAL TREATMENT.

At a clinic of the First District Society of New York, in December. 1886,
("Cosmos," Vol. XXIX, p. 167), Dr. Evans of New York "explained his
7iu'thod of disinfecting devitalized teeth by heat." Tliis he does by "heating a