Page 326 - My FlipBook

322 PIVOT TEETH.

best fitted in with the screw, though they are some-
times placed in without this, aud gold foil packed about
them to retain them. They may be made to receive
a square pivot, by being drawn, in their manufacture,
on a square wire, instead of a round one. For the
escape of pus, as already referred to, the pivot may
be made of hollow wire, with a hole through the
crown of the tooth.
A plate tooth, with a metallic pivot attached, may

be used instead of the ordinary pivot tooth ; and it
is in some cases required, on account of the manner
in which the teeth antagonize. But in all cases
where a plate tooth is used, it should have a metallic
base to rest on, and cover the end of the root. Pro-
perly to construct this, an impression must be ob-
tained, and models and countermodels made, and
the base swaged ; and then to this the pivot and
tooth are attached. Irregularity of the teeth, and
especially of the root on which the crown is to rest,
may require a peculiar adjustment of the pivot, which

may be very happily effected by the method just re-
ferred to.
Occasionally, bad consequences follow the opera-
tion of inserting a pivot tooth, the most frequent of
which is, inflammation of the periosteum. Rough
manipulation is very liable to induce this condition,
where there is an inflammatory diathesis ; in which