[ARTICLE II.]
PULPLESS TEETH.
BY DR. WILSON, OF BURLINGTON, MEMBER OF THE FACULTY OF THE DENTAL DEPARTMENT OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY.
[Extracts of a paper read before the Iowa Dental Association at its late annual meeting.]
A pulpless tooth is not necessarily a dead tooth, but a dead tooth is, of course, a pulpless tooth. The adjectives "pulpless" and "dead" are not, therefore, synonymous, although frequently so used, especially by medical writers. Let us note the marked distinction between the two. A pulpless tooth may be a part of the living organism—a dead tooth has its nutritive supply entirely cut off, and it is in every sense a foreign body—it is dead and inert. The former may be restored to health and usefulness—the latter should always be condemned as a nuisance that cannot be abated without the use of the forceps. * * * *
Having thus briefly called attention to the fact that the dentine and cementine derive their vitality from independent sources—that the life of the one is not dependent upon the life of the other—that a pulpless tooth is not necessarily a dead tooth—we are prepared to consider, understandingly, the subject of this paper. It may, however, seem like presumption on the part of the writer, in thus offering the foregoing to an intelligent body of dentists, when every student of dentistry at the close of his junior year should fully understand the facts above stated. But I am led to a consideration of this subject from articles entitled, "Dead Teeth in the Jaws," that have appeared, from time to time, during the last two years, in the New York Medical Record, and as those articles come from high sources in the medical profession, they deserve more than passing notice. The able editor of that journal, and Dr. Samuel Sexton, a distinguished oculist and aurist of New York City, being the principal writers referred to.
The Medical Record of October 4, 1884, contains a report from the aural service of Dr. Sexton, entitled, "Pain in the Ears due to Irritation in the Jaws." He describes a number of cases of otalgia in which he found the lesion to be in diseased teeth.
He goes on to say that "since dentistry had become such a popular business, and diseased teeth had been so carefully retained in the jaws, nervous diseases about the head were becoming alarmingly common."
The same number of the above journal contained an editorial on "Dead Teeth in the Jaws," which read as follows: "Perhaps the time is near at hand when medical men should be themselves better informed concerning diseases of the jaws and mouth, rather than refer the ailments of this region to individuals whose limited knowledge of medicine does not prevent them from 'treating' dead teeth long after their presence in the jaws has given rise to alveolar abscesses and neuralgias more or less painful. It would not be strange if in the course of events, the day would soon come when all teeth without pulps, and hence in process of more or less rapid decay, as well as those which the deposit of tartar, or other cause, had become entirely divested of periosteal nourishment, would be promptly condemned as unfit to remain in the jaws, regarded in fact as foreign bodies liable to give rise, not only to cerebral irritation and disease in the organs of special sense, through the propagation of local disturbances in the mouth to the regions mentioned, but to endanger likewise the general health through purulent matter discharged into the mouth from alveolar abscesses, to be continuously swallowed for a long time, or, indeed, in some instances, to be absorbed and thus produce septicæmic poisoning. It is certainly gratifying to note the establishment of instruction in oral surgery in some of the medical schools, and it is to be hoped that this subject will receive the attention its importance demands."