Polpa dentária - um estudo sobre número de canais

PULP CAVITIES.
C. E. LATIMER, D.D.S.

"Prove all things, hold fast that which is good."

I AM forcibly reminded of the above when thinking over many errors in theory and practice obtained from my preceptor and others, which I have been, one after another, discovering and correcting; and it is with a view of calling attention to the importance of being "ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you, a reason of the hope that is in you," that I trespass upon the pages of the DENTAL COSMOS.

Our ideas, and even language, are liable to become stereotyped, and we express views, as our teachers have done, time out of mind. I have adopted the rule, and would recommend it to others, especially to those who always succeed, of asking myself,

Can I prove this idea? May not that opinion be a fallacy, after all?

Is it susceptible of demonstration?

I have been engaged recently in some investigations, the results of which have completely upset my previous opinions, and made me doubt whether I was really sure of anything; and, as some of your readers may be as sadly benighted as I was in this matter, I will lay the results of my research before them.

In order that I might work more understandingly in removing the pulps from fang canals and filling them, I collected a number of teeth of the different kinds, and cut them up with saw and excising forceps, in order to show the shape, position, and size of pulp canals,

when, to my surprise, instead of finding but two canals in the inferior molars, as I always supposed, I found as follows:

Whole number of inferior molars, (all having the usual two fangs,) thirty-four, of which
three have four nerve canals,
nineteen have three canals, and
twelve have two canals.

Of these twelve, seven have, by deposit of dentine down through the centre of the anterior fang, nearly produced the three canals;
and of the remaining five, three look as though they might thus close up and make three canals, leaving but two, which probably never would have had more than two nerves.

From the twelve teeth having but two nerves, I find eight with the large openings at the apices, indicating young teeth.

Those with four nerves were evidently very old teeth, with exceedingly small nerves. From what I have been able to learn, I come to the following conclusions:

That the inferior molars originally have but two nerves, but at about a certain age, (yet undetermined,) as calcification progresses, the nerve in the anterior fang becomes divided, beginning at the apex and proceeding upward, forming two nerves, and occasionally, at least at a later period, the posterior nerve may be divided in the same manner.

The same rule holds good, I think, with respect to the second superior bicuspids, although I have not yet been able to examine a sufficient number of these teeth to state positively.

Nearly all examined thus far, however, have the two canals.

I have commenced classifying those which I extract, according to the age of the patient, and hope to obtain, thereby, something definite upon this subject; and, permit me to suggest to others that, by a simple method of classification, they may be very materially aided in filling fangs.

I take a common tooth-brush box and pour a little melted max in the bottom, then, after clipping off the fangs so as to show the pulp canals, warm and press them into the wax in regular order, the different kinds by themselves. A good assortment well studied will, I hope, increase the ratio of our success.

Of course I do not write for those who "always extirpate the nerve thoroughly, and fill solidly with gold to the apex of the fangs."

NEW YORK, December, 1864.