Page 219 - My FlipBook

it will amount to a complete preventive of this class of cavi- ;
ties. I speak advisedly in this from seeing a considerable
number of patients that had succe:eded in stopping- further
decay of this class, or having no more buccal cavities after
the beginning of this tendency had become clearly marked.
We cannot clean fissures, pits and grooves with the brush
we cannot clean the proximate surfaces perfectly with the
brush ; the instrument will not do the work, use it as we
may. It is impossible to get the 'bristles of the brush be-
tween the teeth in such a way as to clean the proximate
surfaces perfectly.
Wc sometimes hear of the brush doing injury to the teeth.
I do not think it is possible that the brush will do injury to
the hard tissues of the teeth. I have seen some cases in
which it appeared as though the brush might be respon-
sible for injury to the teeth near the gum margin, but I
have seen other cases where the brush was not used at all
so nearly like these that I doubt very much whether the
injury had been done by severe brushing. I have also seen
cases where I thought the gum had been torn, lacerated and
caused to recede, particularly from the upper cuspid teeth
on the labial surface. It would seem that we might easily
injure the gums in this position and cause a recession by
the too vigorous use of a stifif brush ; and yet, again, I
have seen many cases apparently the same kind of reces-
sion where a brush was not used and I have come to
doubt whether even this has 'been caused by the too vigor-
ous use of the brush. Yet I should have a care about the
vigorous use of a very stifif brush if I saw" a tendency to this
kind of recession ; in fact, I do not thinik it well to
use a very stifif tooth brush in any case; a brush with
comparatively few hairs, the hairs being sufificiently strong,
but not so many of them as to make it very stifif and harsh.
As a rule, I should not fear injury by the vigorous use of
the tooth brush.
What mouth zvash should he used zvith the brush? Well, as
to prescriptions for mouth washes, I expect you to depend
upon Prof. Peck. I do not care much v^hat the mouth wash
is. Plain water answers a good purpose, but it is often a
valuable point to prescribe some particular mouth wash
for this or that person. If it does no other good, it seems

.207