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.

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    ably remain permanently immune. Relapses seem as likely to occur here as in other diseases, thongh they are usually manifested in a different manner, and they do not necessarily follow the initial attack for some years. In the case just recorded the proba- bility is that, even after this long period of practical immunity, if the young lady gets married and is called upon to pass through all the concomitant vicissitudes of motherhood, those treacherous little micro-organic dogs of war will be turned loose upon her teeth once more, and there will be another contest for supremacy. Decay will commence again in a manner to discourage any pract-- tioner who has not a well-defined idea as to the usual manifesta- tions of periodical susceptibility and immunity, but to one who is accustomed to watching these cases there can be only one mind as to the final outcome, provided the proper coiu'se is pursued. If the case is met in a vigorous manner, and the teeth kept comforta- ble by checking the decay in its earliest stages, the attack will soon pass by and the teeth be saved. In some of these relapses, when the circumstances are such that the patient is unable to apply to the dentist with sufficient frequency, a pulp is occasionally lost and a tooth sometimes breaks down to the degree of requiring a crown, but this is usually the extent of the disaster, and the mouth is still maintained in full functional usefulness. As has been intimated, it is the rarest thing to find a case where the carious process is uniformly and progressively active through life if anything like a reasonable attempt is made to check it. There are, of course, many cases where the teeth are lost one after another till all are gone, even at an early age of the patient, but these are usually cases where no adequate attempt has been made to check the disease, and where the carious process has had the most favorable opportunity to advance. In the light of what we now know, it may be laid down as a conservative statement to say that with proper attention the teeth of most individuals may be saved through life, so far as decay is concerned, and it is confidently believed that an intelligent concep- tion on the part of the profession of the phenomena presented by immunity and susceptibility will add materially to the possibility