Page 21 - My FlipBook
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THE BELIEF OF PAIN 5
If care is used, and the pulp is alive, the patient will
only feel a slight prick, not amounting to pain.
Should the insertion of the bristle cause no sen-
sation, the pulp-chamber should be freely opened,
and explorations made down the root-canals. In
inserting the bristle into a root-canal one is occa-
sionally deceived, for even slight pressure may cause
the patient to wince, and the operator to conclude
he has pricked into living pulp, when the real cause
of the pain is the pressure conveyed to an inflamed
peridental membrane. It is astonishing how little
pressure, even with such a delicate instrument as a
Donaldson bristle, will sometimes cause a patient
to tell the operator he has " touched the nerve,"
subsequent examination revealing that the pulp is
entirely dead.
Periosteal inflammation, caused by an inflamed
pulp, is readily relieved by soothing the pulp with
any appropriate remedy. The treatment of a tooth
with a highly inflamed peridental membrane is often
rendered extremely difficult, and sometimes impos-
sible, owing to the slightest pressure produced by
manipulation causing such pain that the patient
will not submit to it.
Inflammation of the alveolar periosteum, or
dental periosteum, or peridental membrane, as
it is variously termed, is generally caused by septic