Page 24 - My FlipBook

a
a chagrin. Let me say that not ten years ago I filled —
mesio-occlusal cavity in a second lower molar, a pretty large
cavity, with gold, for a dentist. After two or three days he
complained very bitterly of soreness in the tooth ; couldn't
use it. There was no exposure of the pulp ; the mouth was a
very healthy one, apparently, and I began a search to know
why all that commotion. There had been nothing unusual
in the filling, no reason why that tooth should be sore. But
in passing my scaler around in a re-examination, upon the
disto-buccal angle the scaler dropped into a pocket and went
to the end of the root of the tooth. I had actually filled a
tooth when the peridental membrane was destroyed on the
whole distal surface of the distal root, and hadn't noticed it.
I lost the tooth. It would have been lost if I hadn't made
the filling. The patient hadn't known about it, but the
malleting on the lame tooth stirred it up ; it got sore. There
was no prospect of ever saving the tooth, but that filling
should not have been made. Now, with all of our care, we
will sometimes make such mistakes, but we should use every
precaution to make them as seldom as possible.
When you have finished the examination of the gums
and peridental membranes you are ready to begin an exami-
nation of the teeth for caries. Your patient has probably
come to you on account of some carious teeth. That exami-
nation will be conducted with a different set of instruments.
For our general purpose four instruments are sufificient
the single curved explorer, the pair of double curved explor-
ers and the mouth mirror.
I see that my time is up. We will take this up next time
at this point.

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