Case From Dental Practice. [Volume: 2, Issue: 1, August, 1860, pp. 14-16]

14

THE DENTAL COSMOS.

The manufacture of these instruments is left in a great measure to the
manufacturers to make and point them. This is a thing that is quite
necessary for every practitioner to perfectly understand, the making,
pointing, and tempering these instruments. I am perfectly satisfied if such
was the case, we would be better pleased with ourselves and not any less
so with our operations. Dental excavators should all be made from
square steel and not from the drawn or wire steel, for several reasons.
Any one who has examined the structure of these two kinds of steel under
the miscroscope, will very soon be convinced which of these two kinds is
the better for making these highly useful instruments. It is well known
to the workers of steel (especially the surgical and dental instrument
makers) that the more the steel is hammered the better it becomes, and of
course better fitted for cutting instruments. In the making of excavators
from steel wire, it is very often found full of flaws. Under the miscroscope
the particles of steel seem to have lost the attraction for each other,
laterally to a certain degree, and the attraction appears to be by their
poles. This state of things is no doubt produced when the wire is drawn,
but is not always the same in all steel wire. When instruments are made
from steel wire they are not hammered to the required size, (a thing so
essential in the cutting qualities of these instruments,) but they are generally filed to the desired size. But the square steel, on the contrary, is
hammered to the requisite size, and thereby the steel is much improved.
All excavators should be hammered square before the blade is turned
to the desired angle, as it gets the hammering, so important, and in the
turning is not so liable to break.
Those excavators that require angles should have sharp angles and not
a general curve. The necessity of this will be seen in excavating cavities
that take in the whole length of the blade, and in the case of the instrument with a general curve, it will be found to cut away the margin
of the cavity, whereas in the sharp angle the margin is preserved. It
may be objected to that a sharp angle is liable to break, but if sufficient
care is taken in turning the blade this need be no objection. With sharp
angles we are more liable to form our cavity as it should be, and secure a
good margin so essential to a good filling.
PHILADELPHIA, 1860.
CASE FROM DENTAL PRACTICE.
BY J. FOSTER FLAGG, D.D.S.
MRs. W., bilio-sanguine temperament, aged forty-three. Epulis, located between the right superior lateral incisor and canine, commenced
its development when the patient was thirteen years of age; was excised,
and in a short time had again obtained a magnitude which was not only
annoying, but liable to give pain while masticating. During the past