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P. 80
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76 GENERAL REMARKS ON FILLING.
dition, and with a thorough cognizance and apprecia-
tion of all the attendant circumstances, our most skill-
ful operators barely attain success, need we be aston-
ished that the man ignorant of all these circumstances,
and possessed of only a few crude, ill-conditioned
instruments and materials, the nature of which he does
not understand, fails in almost every essay ?
Much depends on therapeutic treatment ; not, in-
deed, to restore parts already lost, or to restore to
health parts much diseased, but to avert a tendency
to disease in parts but feebly organized. This treat-
ment may be either constitutional or local, or both
but constitutional when there is indicated any idio-
syncrasy favorable to decay. If, however, the whole
difficulty is local, topical treatment only is required.
What the special treatment should be in either case
will be more fully considered hereafter. Compara-
tively little can be accomplished by local application
to the substance of the tooth ; but the parts contigu-
ous, as the gums and the mucous membrane, may be
thus treated, with an assurance of more signal results.
Though in the teeth nature does not assist to re-
store a lost portion, as in those parts more highly
organized, yet, to compensate in some degree, the de-
structive process is far less rapid in the former than
in the latter. The general surgeon depends much
upon nature for the success of his operations ; for,
\
76 GENERAL REMARKS ON FILLING.
dition, and with a thorough cognizance and apprecia-
tion of all the attendant circumstances, our most skill-
ful operators barely attain success, need we be aston-
ished that the man ignorant of all these circumstances,
and possessed of only a few crude, ill-conditioned
instruments and materials, the nature of which he does
not understand, fails in almost every essay ?
Much depends on therapeutic treatment ; not, in-
deed, to restore parts already lost, or to restore to
health parts much diseased, but to avert a tendency
to disease in parts but feebly organized. This treat-
ment may be either constitutional or local, or both
but constitutional when there is indicated any idio-
syncrasy favorable to decay. If, however, the whole
difficulty is local, topical treatment only is required.
What the special treatment should be in either case
will be more fully considered hereafter. Compara-
tively little can be accomplished by local application
to the substance of the tooth ; but the parts contigu-
ous, as the gums and the mucous membrane, may be
thus treated, with an assurance of more signal results.
Though in the teeth nature does not assist to re-
store a lost portion, as in those parts more highly
organized, yet, to compensate in some degree, the de-
structive process is far less rapid in the former than
in the latter. The general surgeon depends much
upon nature for the success of his operations ; for,
\
