The practical manual of dental casting : being the recorded experiences of many able and eminent men in the dental profession.

Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The practical manual of dental casting : being the recorded experiences of many able and eminent men in the dental profession. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    line of work, unless the process is followed, or the machine operated, with an average degree of human intelligence, but those who fail to recognize this are surely destined to meet with failure. Thus it is more than probable that many may have failed in attaining to the heights of even average success simply because they expected too much of the process involved, and exacted too little of themselves, but those in this class never become enthusiasts, and those who never become enthusiasts rarely become experts in any line. Enthusiasm, expertness and all that goes with, to make for, and insure, success in the application of any mechanical process can, after all, come only from the man behind the gun, and hence the operator who aspires to such must be willing to acknowledge this fact and contribute his share; and in this instance his share is in the form of ammunition, and the ammunition now needed most of all is correct and accurate technique. While the factor of personal equation will necessarily demand a more or less dififerent technique for each and every operator, yet the most scrupulous attention to details, and the utmost of accuracy is necessary in each instance, and as such a technique is to be acquired only at the expense of time, thought and energy, it is scarcely purchasable, nor may it result from delegating important parts of the work to laboratories, or to inexperienced or unskilled assistants, as is a common but bad practice. When the average operator realizes these essentials to success, then the average operator may reasonably hope to rise above the average and achieve success in the application of the casting process, and as he appreciates them will he also find the field of usefulness broaden and the possibilities become more and more unlimited. If there were no field to which the casting process may be applied other than the one which embraces the filling of teeth, however, let me ask you what a long- felt want would it still aflord; what a broad field of usefulness would it occupy; what a priceless advancement would it mark in the preservation and restoration of the teeth, since it is now generally conceded that the inlay affords a better, quicker, less painful and probably, on the average, more permanent character of operation? Granting all of this to be true, however, the limitations of this process have by no means yet been reached. Indeed, it seems that they are still only in their infancy, and that the field of usefulness as applied to all other phases of practical dentistry is as broad and far-reaching as is the degree and character of success already insured in the filling of teeth. While this is undoubtedly true, to a greater or less extent, as applied to the whole field of dental prosthesis, it is particularly true as applied especially to the subject which it is my purpose to discuss at this time—that of crown and bridge work. But a few—a very few—years ago this line of our work, which many of us are now pleased to designate and dignify as a specialty, was but an indetermin- able collection or mass of empirical details. Almost every dentist had his own ideas, and his own methods, and each differed from the other to such an extent as to confuse the teacher, and bewilder the beginner, in every respect and direction except one—the display of gold. . For many years patients wearing crown or bridge work, however limited or