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PROPHYLAXIS OF DENTAL DECAF. 225

The Use of Antiseptics in the Prophylactic Treatment of
Decay.
When at the beginning of the present decade, through the
most exact methods of bacteriological investigation now in use,
the true (parasitic) cause of one disease after another was brought
to light, we had many reasons to hope that the helpless position
of medicine in the presence of the severest infectious diseases
was soon to be changed. As yet, however, our expectations
have not been realized. With the exception of the still some-
what doubtful triumphs of Pasteur over anthrax and hydro-
phobia, very little advantage whatever has resulted to therapeu-
tics from the eminent bacteriological discoveries of the last ten
years. Consumption, cholera, t^'phus, diphtheria, syphilis, have
not become less terrible through the discovery of the specific
micro-organisms of these disorders.
Diseases which come under the treatment of the dentist form
no exception to this statement. The fact that decay of the teeth
is of parasitic origin having been once established, the thought sug-
gests itself that we ought to be able by means of properly chosen
antiseptic materials not only to arrest decay, but to prevent its
appearance. This is, indeed, the avowed object of the very
many antiseptic mouth-washes now in the market. As a matter
of fact, however, there is no evidence that anything whatever
has as yet been accomplished in the prophylactic treatment of
the teeth through the use of antiseptic mouth-washes, and it is
e^ndent that anyone who would discover some means by which
the often fatal ravages caused by decay of the teeth might be
held in check would thereby confer a great boon on humanity.
It would, however, be going too far if we were to adopt the
views of those who have expressed the opinion that by proper
care of the teeth and constant use of antiseptic washes fi*om
childhood on, decay would be entirely banished from the human
mouth.
This view is too optimistic for various reasons : chiefly because
there are places in every denture which will remain completely
untouched even by the most thorough application of the anti-
septic, or the antiseptic will reach them in so diluted a con-
dition that it possesses little or no action. If a very thorough
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