"Tin made into leaves is employed as a stopping material; with sufficient experience it can be elaborated into the finest lines and cracks, and against almost the weakest walls, and teeth are sometimes lost with gold that might have been well preserved with tin. I saw an effective tin stopping in a tooth of Cramer's, the celebrated musical composer, which had been placed there thirty-five years ago by Talma, of Paris." ("The Odontalgist," by J. Paterson Clark, London, 1854.)
Refer to what the same author said in 1836.
"Tin is the best substitute for gold, and can often be used in badly shaped cavities where gold cannot." (Prof. Harris, 1854.)
"Tin is better than any mixture of metals for filling teeth." (Professor Tomes, London, 1859.)
In 1860 a writer said that "such a change may take place in the mouth as to destroy tin fillings which had been useful for years, and that tin was not entirely reliable in any case; it must not be used in a tooth where there is another metal, nor be put in the bottom of a cavity and covered with gold, for the tin will yield, and when fluids come in contact with the metals, chemical action is induced, and the tin is oxidized. Similar fillings in the same mouth may not save the teeth equally well. Filling is predicated on the nature of decay, for only on correct diagnosis can a proper filling-material be selected."
Reviewing the foregoing statement, we believe that a change may take place in the mouth which will destroy gold fillings (or the tooth-structure around them) much oftener than those of tin. It is now every-day practice to put tin into the same tooth with another metal; if the bottom of a cavity is filled with tin properly packed, it will not yield when completed with gold, and if the gold is tight, the oral fluids cannot come in contact with both metals and produce chemical action or oxidation; similar fillings of gold in the same mouth do not save the teeth equally well. Should we expect more of tin in this respect, or discard it because it is not always better than gold?
In Article V of the "New Departure Creed," Dr. Flagg says, "Skillful and scrupulous dentists fill with tin covered with gold, thereby preventing decay, pulpitis, death of the pulp, and abscess, and thus save the teeth."
In 1862 Mr. Hockley, of London, mentions tin for filling, and the same year Dr. Zeitman, of Germany, recommended it as a substitute for gold, particularly for poor people.
"Is tin foil poisonous? If not, why are our brethren so reluctant to use it? Is it nauseous? If not, why not employ it? Will it not preserve the teeth when properly used? Then why not encourage the use of it? Does its name signify one too common in the eyes of the people, on account of its daily use in the tin shops, or do patients murmur when the fee is announced, because it is nothing but tin? Is it not better than amalgam, although the patient may believe it less costly? Eleven good plugs, twenty-nine years old, in one mouth demonstrates that tin will last as long as gold in many cases." (F. A. Brewer, Dental Cosmos, 1863.)
"So much tin foil is used for personal and domestic purposes that the following is important: Ordinary tin foil by chemical analysis contained 88.93 per cent. of lead; embossed foil, 76.57 per cent.; tea foil, 88.66 per cent.; that which was sold for the pure article, 34.62 per cent. Tin foil of above kind is made by inclosing an ingot of lead between two ingots of tin, and rolling them out into foil, thus having the tin on the outside of the lead." (Dr. J. H. Baldock, Dental Cosmos, 1867.)