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FILLING TEETH 57

in the dentine at a safe distance between the enamel
border and the pulp, its direction being away from
the pulp. Any idea that a small pin-like piece of
gold—that is more remote from the pulp than the
large mass of filling that rests on the floor of the
cavity—should cause irritation or death of the pulp,
Avhen the filling itself is a far more probable cause
of this, is difficult of comprehension. It is true
that a pin-head or pin-point gold filling that does
not extend more than half a millimetre into the
dentine may cause death of a pulp ; but if these
cases were seriously considered, no one would ever
make a gold filling.
When it comes, however, to considering the dif-
ficulty that may every now and then occur in
making a satisfactory starting pit, and when any
trouble or time that filling the pit and carefully
extending the gold over a cervical wall, or other
starting wall, is considered, the value and conveni-
ence of wedging in a base of non- cohesive gold is
manifest. Cohesive gold does not cohere with non-
cohesive, and will not usually even stick to it, conse-
quently a mechanical adhesion, produced by driving
or locking the cohesive into the non-cohesive, is
imperative. This can be effected with sharp, deeply
serrated pluggers ; or pits may be forced into the
non-cohesive gold (in the direction of the cervico