Page 161 - My FlipBook

INTRODUCING THE FILLING. 157 ;

of it at or near the center of the filling. It is a very
common practice to introduce the gold rather loosely,
or without much condensing, and after being intro-
duced in this manner, to condense by forcing into it
a wedge-shaped instrument at various points, and
rilling these perforations with small rolls of gold
continuing to use the wedge-shaped instrument as
long as it can be forced into the filling. This method
is by no means as efficient as that of condensing each
portion as it is introduced. By the latter plan the
filling can be made uniformly dense from the surface
to the bottom of the filling. This can not be done

it will
by the use of the wedge-shaped instrument ;
compress most at its largest diameter, that is, at the
surface of the plug.
In no filling, even when the walls of the cavity are
parallel, will a uniform density throughout be ob-
tained by perforating with the wedge. The filling
would be most dense at the surface, and less so the

farther into the filling we go. This method is objec-
tionable for condensing the fillings on the masticating
surfaces of the molars ; for in the act of mastication
the inner portion would yield, and the surface of the
filling would be crowded down into the cavity, and
the dentine within the orifice become exposed and
decay be the result. In proximal fillings this objec-
tion would not have the same force. In pressing an