The Archives of Dentistry, Vol. VII, No. 4, April 1890

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
SUCCESSOR TO Missouri Dental Journal, also Consolidated with New England Journal of Dentistry .
BY DR. K. M. FULLERTON, CEDAR FALLS, IOWA.
The bleaching of teeth has, from the first introduction of a positive method, been met with remarkable indifference and, at times, positive prejudice. Why this should be will remain a problem. The teeth that require bleaching belong mostly to a class condemned for all purposes except that of mastication. The process is generally only applicable to the six anterior teeth, while possibly an occasional bicuspid may be treated with advantage. When these anterior teeth, especially the incisors, are discolored, they are such a positive disfigurement that the operator has only the choice of evils—to bleach or to excise them, and insert an artificial crown. It would seem no difficult matter to come to a decision, or at least to determine to give the natural tooth a chance for future usefulness.
The fear of re-discoloration, or annoying labor, should not be taken into consideration. All operators are liable to meet with sudden discoloration in the regulating of teeth by the strangulation of the pulp at the apical foramen. When this occurs, it is one of the most humiliating of accidents, as it is one of the most annoying to patients. Discoloration is caused by decomposition, through a slow disintegration of the organic material and the deposit of carbonaceous matter. It therefore follows that the products producing color are not necessarily taken into the tubes by imbibition, though doubtless, to a limited extent, this is the case, but are produced by local degeneration through putrefactive processes. This change, though very slow in producing results, eventually gives to the tooth the bluish tinge, or to a tooth long affected by decomposed matter, the dirty, bluish-yellow. It is unnecessary to enter minutely into the more remote causes of discoloration, but we may summarize them as follows: