The author used tin foil for filling the teeth of some of his fellow-students at the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in 1867.
"Amalgam should never be used in teeth which can be filled with tin, and most of them can be." (Dr. H. M. Brooker, Montreal, 1870.)
"I have used tin extensively, and found it more satisfactory than amalgam. Dentists ignore tin, because it is easier to use amalgam, less trouble. This is not right. If your preceptor has told you that amalgam is as good as tin, and he thinks so, let him write an article in its defense. Not one dentist in ten who has come into the profession within the last ten years knows how to make a tin filling, and only a few of the older ones know how to make a good one." (Dr. H. S. Chase, Missouri Dental Journal, 1870.)
"Among the best operators a more general use of tin would produce advantageous results, while among those whose operations in gold are not generally successful an almost exclusive use of tin would bring about a corresponding quantum of success to themselves and patients, as against repeated failures with gold. The same degree of endeavor which lacked success with gold, if applied to tin would produce good results and save teeth. A golden shower of ducats realized for gold finds enthusiastic admirers, but a dull gray shower for tin work is not so admirable, even though many of the teeth were no better for the gold as gold, nor so well off in the ultimate as with tin." (Dr. E. W. Foster, Dental Cosmos, 1873.)
In 1873 Dr. Royal Varney said, "I am heartily in favor of tin; it is too much neglected by our first-class operators."
"Tin stops the ends of the tubuli and interglobular spaces which are formed in the teeth of excessive vascular organization; if more teeth were filled with tin, and a smaller number with futile attempts with gold, people would be more benefited." (Dr. Castle, Dental Cosmos, 1873.)
"If cavities in teeth out of the mouth are well filled with tin, and put into ink for three days, no discoloration of the tooth (when split open) can be seen." (W. E. Driscoll, Dental Cosmos, 1874.)
"Tin makes an hermetical filling, and resists the disintegrating action of the fluids of the mouth. If an operator can preserve teeth for fifteen dollars with tin, which would cost fifty dollars with gold, ought he not to do so? Upon examination of the cavities from which oxidized plugs have been removed, these oxids will be found to have had a reflex effect upon the dentin; the walls and floors will be discolored and thoroughly indurated, and to a great degree devoid of sensitiveness, although they were sensitive when filled. Tin is valuable in case of youth, nervousness, impatience, high vitality of dentin, low calcification, and low pecuniosity." (Dr. H. Gerhart, Pennsylvania Journal of Dental Science, 1875.)
"Tin Foil for Filling Teeth." Essay by Dr. H. L. Ambler, read before the Ohio State Dental Society. (Dental Register of the West, 1875.)
"Some say that if tin is the material the cavity must be filled with, that it must be filled entirely with it, but advanced teachings show differently." (Dr. D. D. Smith, Dental Cosmos, October, 1878.)