Page 292 - My FlipBook

288 FILLING ROOTS.

leaving the canal unfilled ; and it is maintained that
this method will, in favorable cases, answer the pur.
pose quite as well as that of filling the root, and

incur less risk. The treatment will be such as
already described for the restoration of diseased
roots ; all discharge through it must be suppressed,
and all foreign substances liable to decomposition,
removed from the canal, so that there may be a
complete restoration before it is closed.
Oftentimes, when a tooth has been filled without
filling the roots and pulp-chamber, if the pulp be
dead, or if the pulp afterward dies, the chamber
becomes the receptacle of a very vitiated and acrid
material, the retention of which will almost invariably
produce irritation. In all such cases, an opening

should be made for the escape of the offensive matter.
This is clone, if the filling is not to be removed, by
passing a small drill into the pulp-chamber or canal,
just above the filling, as close as possible. The handle
of the drill should be depressed, so as to give the
opening a downward inclination from within outward,
and thus favor the escape of any secretion.
In the superior molars, this opening may be made
through the masticatory surface; it may, sometimes,
be in the depressions on the crown surface, even
though there be no filling. In incisors, it is made
through the palatine portion of the crown. It is bet-