Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-11-23
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Too Many Teeth Out?

A protest against what he terms
the reckless extraction of teeth" is
made by DR.. Walter c.. Alvarez of
San Francisco in the journal Of the
American Medical Association"
(Chicago, October 1S). Ever since
the discovery that many unexplained
maladies could be traced to poison
ing from focal infections" such as
assesses at the roots of the teeth.
extracting the lattev to get rid of
the former has become fayorite
therapeutic measure, and in some
cases it has met with signal success
He writes
Day after day I see people who
have had half a dozen or more teeth
extracted. Their former physicians
had promised them great things; in
some cases had even guaranteed
cure, but here they are still suffer-
ing and now greatly discouraged.
Many have no chewing surface left,
and the remaining teeth are often so
distributed that the only thing to do
is to remove them and put in plates
To my mind one of the saddest fea-
lures is that, in many of these cases,
an experienced physician might have
foretold the unsatisfactory outcome
anu 1llSIll nave WdIHcu TIE OTlflD-
dentist or the dentist to proceed eau
tiously and conservatively. Some
times | have-secured the roentgeno-
grams which were used in deciding
which teeth were to come out and
have been unable to find more than
one of two roots which after years
of experience l would call infected.
In some, downward projection of
the antrum had evidently been mis-
taken for assesses. In others, it
seemed to me that the physicians.
quite oblivious to any possible value
of the teeth to their owner, must
have ordered their extraction SIM
ply because he believed it a panacea
for most diseases.
Il believe we have lost our heads
over this thing and that the time has
come to call a halt Men have OBJ
tanned such beautiful results in some
cases by extracting teeth that some
Of them are now trying to explain
most diseases on the basis of these
focal infections In practice, they
pull the teeth first, and If the patient
returns Unidentified, they can then
look to see what is the matter
"As the enthusiast often regards
the conservative as a man who must
be ignorant of the wonderful results
which can be gained by using his
methods, I wish to say that since
1911 it has been practically a routine
procedure in my office to roentgeno-
graph all suspicious teeth, and !
have had hundreds extracted.
would emphasize the fact that
have seen my share of the miracles
described by my radical friende-I,
too, have seen inflamed joints go
down over night; so-called tubercu-
losis glands disappear as suddenly;
headaches leave for good. and SO on;
but these things have not blinded
me to the fact that for one miracle
1 have seen many failures
MANY of the dentists have be-
come so frightened over the terrible
results>which they think must follow
every root infection that they are
refusing to fill any root canals at all.
They feel that the risk to life and
health is so great that a man should
INN ediately sacrifice every dead
tooth in his head. Certainly the
thousands of people who for the
last go or 40 years have been chew
ing contentedly on dead teeth with
out signs of root infection) should
be grateful that these radical IDEAS
did not prevail when they were
young. The trouble with many OF
our dentists today is that they do
not know enough about the wonder
full defenses of the body against bac-
terra. These defenses are partlcu-
larry efficient in the mouth. where,
in spite of the rich flora and the con-
tinual trauma, wounds heal with
surprising rapidity. Bacteria are
constantly getting through the first
line of defense only to be stopped
at the second, and / see no reason
why the body cannot in many cases
protect itself perfectly from the &C
tiyities of few invaders which nave
reached the apex Of tooth.
''In view of the fact that the most
though removal Of focal infections
often fails to cure arthritis and other
diseases, let us be more honest ana
conservative with our patients. Let |
us be careful what we promise theln'
Let us save serviceable teeth When-
ever possible. Above all, let us DO
unto our patients only what we
would have done unto ourselves II
their teeth were in our heads
"a