Page 167 - My FlipBook

FILLING TEETH 151

There are also several other combinations that are
very useful on occasion.
Gold and Amalgam.—A combined filling of gold
and amalgam is of value principally in approximo-
occlusal cavities in molars and bicuspids. When the
cervical wall is so far below the gum that the
rubber dam cannot be carried over this border, or
when this would be an inflictive procedure, the filling
may be built up to the gum line with amalgam. This
enables the dam to be applied, and a gold filling to
be made. The amalgam should be trimmed as
smoothly as possible, and then further smoothed
and polished when it is set. There is no contour
knuckle to interfere with the thorough smoothing
and polishing of the amalgam, and discs can be
freely used to effect this. When the exterior of the
amalgam is polished the dam is applied, and the gold
filling started by considering the amalgam as forming
the cervical wall, and treating it accordingly.
In certain cases, no matter whether the cavity is
far below the gum or not, the filling is built up to
the knuckle with amalgam, and then completed
with gold. A filling of this kind has often advan-
tages over an all-gold or an all-amalgam filling.
In difficult cases the tedium and uncertainty of
packing the gold into the deeper parts of these
cavities is done away with, and the part that