Page 30 - My FlipBook

14 THE TREATMENT OF TEETH
practice, which cannot be too strongly condemned.
Occasionally it may prove of great value, when a
patient, for instance, is about to leave the neigh-
bourhood, and there is no time to give relief in any
other way ; or in cases Avhere, owing to a highly
inflamed peridental membrane, it is impossible to
cut out a filling or open into the pulp - chamber
through the cavity of decay. In many of these
cases the tooth may be supported on the lingual
side by the thumb or fingers, and drilling through
the neck of the tooth at right angles may be
quite bearable. In these cases the vent-hole is
not to take the place of root treatment and filling,
but is used as a means of enabling it to be subse-
quently carried out, when, of course, the vent-hole
will be filled up.
It is, however, decidedly preferable to open
directly and freely into the pulp-chamber through
the cavity of decay, or by cutting out a filling when
necessary, whenever it is possible to do so. It is
often impossible, except by ocular or instrumental
proof, to know whether the symptoms are caused by
a dead pulp or by one that is inflamed, and if, as
may easily happen, rhizodontrophy is resorted to
in a case in which the pulp is alive, or in a case in
which the pulp-chamber happens to be filled up
with secondary dentine, it will be a worse than