Principles and practice of filling teeth / by C.N. Johnson.

  • Johnson, Charles Nelson, 1860-1938.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles and practice of filling teeth / by C.N. Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    19/318 (page 13)
    and obtained proper dental service in the initial stages of the affection the teeth might have been preserved for many years of usefnlness. It is true that in these particular cases the patient had failed to apply to the dentist in time to accomplish anything, through an ignorance of the significance of the deposits, and yet there would seem to be many instances where the neglect is not entirely traceable to the patient. It should be the office of the dentist not only to perform operations on the teeth, but to so educate those who come under his charge that the general public shall be made familiar with conditions so readily understood as these, and so manifestly self-evident when attentioji is once called to them. KINDS OF DEPOSITS. Deposits are usually classified under three kinds, salivary calcu- lus, serumal calculus, and green stain, though from an operative point of view the latter would seem to be widely distinguishable from the other two. It is not a deposit of appreciable bulk, and it is entirely different in character, both as regards its deleterious effects and the methods to be employed in its removal. ISTor would it seem to be altogether appropriate to limit the term to green stain. There are other stains on the teeth besides those of a green color, and they should not be ignored in considering the subject. Salivary Calculus. This, as its name implies, is chiefly a deposit from the saliva. The solid constituents of this secretion, which are normally held in solution during its progress from the gland to the mouth, be- come so affected by the change of environment on entering the oral cavity as to be precipitated in the form' of calculus on the teeth. This being true, we should naturally expect to find the most extensive deposits upon the surfaces of the teeth lying nearest to the openings of the salivary ducts, a fact borne out by clinical observations. The usual points of initial deposit of salivary calcu- lus are upon the lingual surfaces of the lower incisors, opposite the openings of the ducts from the sublingual and submaxillary glands,.