Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1912-01-12
An ENGLISH PHYSICIAN DE
NUNClATION OE AMERICAN
DENTISTRY.

The world has been wotully misled
for many years regarding American
dentistry, in the opinion OF the illus
trious pathologist to the London
Charing Cross Hospital, DR.. William
Hunter. It is his matured conviction
that dentistry as practiced in this
country is curse to the world, the
fruitful source of one of the most
terrible scourges affecting the ply
sicial frame of man-sepis. In other
words, dentistry, as practiced by even
the ablest men in the American profess
sion, is spreading deadly maladies
not only among the moderately well
off, but among the very rich. In
deed. the rich are the worst sufferers
because they can afford the high price
of the most skilled work.
An illustration of Doctor Hunters
meaning is given by himself in the
London Lancet. One Of the worst
cases of sepsis he ever saw was
brought him by doctor who said that
the patients mouth had been scare
fully seen to and was in good order. +"
The patient was tall, handsome man
in the prime of life. His case was the
severest pernicious ieiopathic anemia
Imaginable. His moatu was to al
appearances clean, for it was one
solid mass of gold caps. bridges,
crowns, filings, false teeth and the
like, so ingeniously built up that one
could hardly tell what was false and
what was real. To free that man
from his poisoned state involved in
consequence what was really equiva-
lent to a major operation in surgery.
The condition of necrosis, sepsis and
the like revealed on removal of the
golden architecture of hi mouth was
perfectly appalling. DR.. Hunter
proceeds:
mo one mas PROBABLY had more
reason than l have had to admire the
sheer ingenuity ard mechanical skill
constantly displayed by the dental
surgeon. And no one has had more
reason to appreciate the CHASTITY TRACE
dies of oral sepsis which his misplace
ed ingenuity so often carries in its
train. Gold filings, gold caps, gold
bridges, gold crowns, fixed dentures,
built in, on and around diseased teeth
form veritable mausoleum of gold
over a mass OF sepsis to which there
is no parallel in the whole realm of
medicine or surgery. The whole con-
stitutes perfect gold trap of sepsis
of which the patient if proud and
which no persuasion will induce him
TO part with. For has it not cost him
much money, and has he not been
proud to have his black roots elegant
ly covered with beaten gold, although
no ingenuity in the world can incor-
porate the gold edge of the cap or
crown with the underlying surfaces of
the root beneath the edges of the
gums? There is no rank of society
free from the fatal effects on health Of
this surgical malpractice.
II speak from experience. The
worst cases of anemia, fiastritis, coli
It's, of all kinds and degrees, of obs
Icure fever of unknown orr gin, or pur-
pura. or nervous disturbances of all
kinds ranging from mental depression
lEp to actual LESSONS of the cord, OF
chronic rheumatic affections, of kid
ney disease, are those which owe their
origin to, or are gravely complicated
by the oral sepsis produced in private
patients by these gold traps of sepsis.
Time and again | have traced the
: very first onset of the whole trouble OF
which they complained to period
within month or two of their inser-
ton. The sepsis hereby produced is
Ipartiularly severe and hurtful in its
: effects. For it is damned up in the
, bone and in the periosteum, and can
, not be got rod of by any antiseptic
measures which the patient or the
doctor can carry out Moreover, II
is painless, and its septic effects there
fore go on steadily accommodating in
intensity without drawing attention
to their seat of origin.
"Such are the fruits of this baneful
so-called conservative dentistry.
The title would be fitting one if the
! teeth were a series of ivory pegs
planted in stone sockets. But the
teeth being what they are-namely,
highly developed pieces of bone It's
sac, possessing, l would point out, a
richer blood and nerye-supply than
any piece of tissue of the same size IN
D sthe whole body-and planted 10 SOC
o kets of bone with the closet vascular
relations to the bone and the soft
Tissues of the periosteum and The
gums, the title that would best desert
be the dentistry here referred to would
. be that of septic dentistry Conser-
vative it is, but only in one sense
In conserves the sepsis which it pro
duces by the gold work it places over
, and around the teeth, by the satisfac
ton which it gives the patient, by the
pride which the dentist responsible
e for it feels in his high class Amer
e ican' work, and by his inability OF
e unwillingness to recognize the septic
effects which it produces.
IL After ten years. experience o: the
, mature of these dental effects and o.
e the difficulty in removing them from
1.-The mouth of the unfortunate wealthy
people best able to afford them, DR.
Hunter feels that the only solution Of
the difficulty is spread among den
I lists of knowledge of sepsis. The
, problem is pressing one for the
dental profession, its solution being
fof Importance in TIE interests of pub.
llic health. The civilized world be.
holds one branch of the healing pro-
lfession struggling with might and
main to prevent poisonous condi-
4 ton of the human system, known as
sepsis. There is in the world another
great department OF the therapeutic
world, that of dentistry, iudustriously
Engaged in promoting the evil Of sep
isis. Dentistry, that is to say, ignores
the fundamental truths of anatomy,
physiology, pathology and the tissues
generally. $40 goldcap healthy or
diseaeed tooth in order to heautify or
preserve it is the negation 'oi every
I.-r - .haea frrfhs fof phyci01o yvl-o