A text-book of operative dentistry

Front matter

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Preface

For many years the author has felt that there was need of a text-book on Operative Dentistry, that should be confined more especially to the descriptions of the manual operations required for the preservation of the natural teeth.

This volume is the result of this feelinf^, quickened by the invitation of the National Association of Dental Faculties to undertake the work.

With what success it is accomplished, the future will determine. The author hopes that it may at least serve as one step toward the production of something that shall serve the purpose fully. The effort has been made to avoid unnecessary detail and to leave out all that could be dispensed with, consistently with clearness.

Hence History has not been attempted, and only enough of definitions, etiology and symptoms of diseases given to make clear the description of the operation to be performed. While intending to include the principles involved in all ways of performing each operation, repetitions under the heads of different methods have been avoided, and authors' names have been generally omitted from the text.

The work is not intended as a substitute for larger works, but as an epitome of the practical application of the principles discussed at length in more extensive volumes, and to these the student is referred for exhaustive discussion.

The most advanced nomenclature has been adopted as far as professional sentiment would sustain the author.

Canine has been left for dogs and cuspid constantly used. Tartar has been discarded as unscientific, and calculus substituted. Hyjiercementosis seems to fully express the con-

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IV PREFACE.

ditions of the cementum so long called exostosis, which seems applicable only to affections of true bone.

Phagedenic pericementitis has been adopted as the scientific name of the condition known as Riggs' disease ; this has been pointed out as the one condition that obtains throughout the progress of the disease and seems eminently suitable and correct.

The author desired to substitute lingual for palatal as applied to the upper teeth, but so many expressed dissent that the latter term is sustained.

There has been so much change in respect to nomenclature, it was thought best to insert articles on anatomy and physiology, so that those parts of the subject should correspond with the nomenclature used in the subsequent pages of this book. Similar reasons apply to the writing of several other portions of the work. With few exceptions, all of the first and second parts have been written expressly for this work. The third part on Crown and Bridge work is necessarily largely a compilation. The introduction of this work is too recent, and the methods of construction too diversified, to make possible any definite system which should appear unquestionably better than all others.

This work is classed as Operative Dentistry as it is all dependent upon the natural teeth for support, and may all be done at the operating chair, and almost all of it is much better done with the patient present.

All Operative Dentistry is mechanical, and crown work is no more so than filling a cavity, applying a medicine or injecting an abscess. It was the opinion of a large majority of the Dental Faculties that it should be properly considered as belonging to Operative Dentistry, and in dental societies it has been by common consent considered as such.

The limited time the author could devote to writing of this work would have been found entirely inadequate for the task, but for the clerical and literary assistance rendered by his professional friend and former pupil, Dana W. Fellows, m. d.

PREFACE. V

The portions treating of the Anatomy and Physiology of the teeth and contiguous parts and deciduous and permanent dentition were written entirely by him, and much critical assistance rendered throughout the book.

Prof Frank Abbott, m. d., also gave the author valuable help b\' making careful and extended notes on the manuscript.

Important suggestions were made also by Profs. S. H. Guilford, a.m., d.d.s.; E. T. Darby, m.d., d.d.s.; C. N. Pierce, D.D.S.; A. H. Fuller, .m.d., d.d.s.; T. E. Weeks, d.d.s.; Edmund Noyes, d.d.s.; H. W. Morgan, m.d., d.d.s.; S. W. Dennis, m.d., d.d.s.; T. H. Chandler, d.m.d., and Wm. H. Atkinson, m.d.

Thanks are due to the S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Co. for the use of so many of their electrotypes for the excellent illustrations appearing in these pages, also to the publishers of the "American System of Dentistry," and to Claudius Ash & Sons, of London, for like favors.

THOMAS FILLEBROWN.

Boston, December iji/i, 1888.

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