Page 273 - My FlipBook

EXPOSED PULPS. 269

escape of the preparation, or the entrance of moisture
or foreign substances : any preparation may be used,
that will accomplish these objects. In the applica-
tion of the pledget, care must be exercised lest too
much pressure be made on the pulp, and pain be thus
produced. In order to prevent this pressure, another
method has been adopted, which consists in forming

a cap of lead, placing in it the arsenic, in the dry
state or with some suitable solvent, and then fitting it
over the exposed pulp, and retaining it there with a
pledget of cotton, as above, or with Hill's stopping,
gutta-percha, or adhesive wax. Thus the preparation
comes gently in contact with the pulp, and prevents
any pressure on it. The morphine is used for the

purpose of diminishing the pain which frequently
results from the application of arsenic only; but its
influence for such a purpose is predicated more on
theory than on practice; for facts prove that, applied
to living tissue, it produces pain rather than allays it.
Therefore the more observing and better class of
practitioners have discarded it.
Other substances have been mixed with arsenic,
for the purpose of mitigating or altogether relieving
the deleterious consequences so liable to follow its
administration; as, for instance, pulverized charcoal,

which combined with it in equal parts by weight,
makes a favorite preparation with good practitioners.