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74 GENERAL REMARKS ON FILLING.

such success in different operations, equally well ac-
complished, cannot be calculated, without consider-

ing a variety of circumstances, such as differences in
constitutions, in states of health, in previous and sub-
sequent habits.
The rilling of the teeth is predicated upon the na-
ture of decay, upon the fact that the lost portion will
not be restored by nature, and upon the fact that
caries is an effect of external causes, and not of any

cause within the tooth itself. If the cause of caries
were alone within the tooth, then rilling would not
be its rational treatment. The organic structure of

the teeth is of such nature that no change to the ex-
tent of decomposition will take place in it, indepen-
dently of external influences. Any organ possessing
sufficient vitality and circulation to be susceptible of
disease and decomposition, independently of external
influences, possesses recuperative power enough to
restore to itself a lost part ; and if dentine could be
decomposed without external agents, the introduction
of any foreign substance whatever into the cavity,
would certainly not arrest the decay, but most pro-
bably accelerate it. If it is true that the decay of
the teeth ever originates in constitutional causes,

then the treatment should be constitutional, and not
local.
The filling of teeth, then, is based upon the ina-