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86 GENERAL REMARKS ON FILLING.
In adaptability, too, gold is superior to any other
metal. It can be elaborated into a variety of forms,
with any of which very good fillings can be made.
It can be perfectly conformed to any shape of surface,
however irregular. A tooth that can be filled at all,
can be filled with gold. This assertion was made a
number of years ago ; and if it was true then, it is
much more true now ; for then the adhesive property
of gold was not employed at all, or even recognized as
available ; but now, this property has been rendered
efficient and practicable. Then, our best operators
did not aim to unite the different portions of gold of
which the fillings were composed. The idea that such
consolidation could be effected, seemed never to have
entered their minds. Indeed, with the instruments
and the method of manipulation then employed, this
adhesive property could not have been made available
but as it came to be recognized, the instruments and
the manipulation were adapted to the purpose. For-
merly, an ordinary gold plug when removed from a
cavity, could be readily separated into as many pieces
as originally composed it ; but now, when adhesive
gold is skillfully used, the mass composing a filling
can not be divided into its original parts, but may be
wrought into plate, wire, or foil. Non-adhesive gold
—the modification in which, till recently, it was
always employed—would not weld, even under great
86 GENERAL REMARKS ON FILLING.
In adaptability, too, gold is superior to any other
metal. It can be elaborated into a variety of forms,
with any of which very good fillings can be made.
It can be perfectly conformed to any shape of surface,
however irregular. A tooth that can be filled at all,
can be filled with gold. This assertion was made a
number of years ago ; and if it was true then, it is
much more true now ; for then the adhesive property
of gold was not employed at all, or even recognized as
available ; but now, this property has been rendered
efficient and practicable. Then, our best operators
did not aim to unite the different portions of gold of
which the fillings were composed. The idea that such
consolidation could be effected, seemed never to have
entered their minds. Indeed, with the instruments
and the method of manipulation then employed, this
adhesive property could not have been made available
but as it came to be recognized, the instruments and
the manipulation were adapted to the purpose. For-
merly, an ordinary gold plug when removed from a
cavity, could be readily separated into as many pieces
as originally composed it ; but now, when adhesive
gold is skillfully used, the mass composing a filling
can not be divided into its original parts, but may be
wrought into plate, wire, or foil. Non-adhesive gold
—the modification in which, till recently, it was
always employed—would not weld, even under great
