Page 165 - My FlipBook

found almost every species of micro-organism that grow in the
saHva. The number of species of micro-organisms will dimin-
ish as we proceed from without inward, until in the deeper lay-
ers there is generally but one variety. But there is another
variety found close down toward this deepest portion of in-
vasion, and if in planting we have not taken the deepest layers
in which micro-organisms are found, we will see white points
growing out among the yello'wish colonies ; the yellowish col-
onies are the caries fungus, little colonies springing up that
will m a short time overgrow the caries fungus. These are
pus-forming micro-organisms—the staphylococci. We fmd
them closely associated with the caries fungus. They are not
the staphylococcus albus, as we find it in other positions or in
abscesses ; they are not those that I have shown you that melt
down the gelatin most rapidly, but the other variety, found con-
tinually in the mouth, that melt the gelatin down more slowly,
but under favorable conditions they will form abscesses as
well. Now, suppose this decay has gone on until it has reached
the pulp ; suppose in excavating the cavity you find it approach-
ing the pulp very closely. You are afraid if you remove all
of the softened material the pulp will be exposed. What shall
you do about it ? Remove it if it does expose the pulp ; you
had better know the facts. Why? If the pulp will be ex-
posed by the removal of the softened material it has been
exposed to the carious process and the probabilities are that it
is an inflamed pulp. It may be already an infected pulp and
will necessarily die under a filling. If you remove all of the
decay you knoiv whether it is exposed to the carious process or
not ; you have knowledge of the conditions. Let me say to
you that a pulp exposed to the carious process is an inflamed
pulp, and if it is very completely exposed t6 the carious process
—mind vou, I do not now say exposed to the saliva—there
may be a thick layer of carious material over it, so that it is
not exposed to the saliva, but if it is exposed to the carious
material it is an inflamed pulp in every instance. Now, why
do I speak so positively on this point ? It is for the reason that
I have spent months, I can almost say years—not years of
actual consecutive hours, but at work at it more or less every
week—in hunting out and finding extracted teeth, and I have
had other dentists save them for me, putting them in the proper
fluids, which I had prepared for them. I have broken these

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