PLEASANT DENTISTRY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 36, 13 October 1913, Page 4

PLEASANT DENTISTRY.

There is probably no operation more calculated to cause shiver down the

spine or intense nervous excitation than that period iy the stopping of a tooth when the dentist in drilling is just on the point or has touched the nerve, remarks a writer in the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Of course, it is all imagination, we are told, and! only imaginative people fool it. But there must bo a very large proportion of imaginative people, and they will welcome the fact that an important discovery has been made by a celebrated American dentist, under which, by the application of a combination] of nitrous oxide gas and oxygen in certain proportions, a condition knowii as analgesia is induced, under which the patient, while retaining full consciousness, becomes insensible to pain. Analgesia differs from anaesthesia, inasmuch as, while both bring about immunity from pain, in the one case the senses remain, while in the ather the patient becomes insensible. The honor of introducing the discovery

into Australasia, it is understood, belongs to Mr Gresham, dentist, of Invercargill, who obtained the apparatus and particulars from America, and recently gave a demonstration be-' fore a body of medical men and pressmen. The operator demonstrated that the patient was put under the influence of the gas mixture and reached a condition in which lie could not feel a severe punch or the thrust of a pin. He spoke to those about him, answered questions, and described what was being done. The operating dentist got to’ work rapidly with a vigorous application of the drill. The nerve cavity was opened, the probe was thrust well home, and the pulp of the nerve was removed. The cavity was well cleaned, dried, and filled, and the patient stepped out of the chair and entered into conversation with the medical men. In a few minu-

tes his sense of feeling-returned, but he was not in any way affected. It was a striking demonstration, , and quite satisfied the expert observers. Not only does a dental operation, ordinarily painful, become painless, without any • unpleasantness to the patient, but-the operator, it is affirmed, can work with greater rapidity and confidence, and as the condition of. analgesia i can bd maintained for hours 'Without 1 injurious reshits,' the dentist can finish three or four teeth fin an afternoon,! and a case can be disposed; of quickly. !;lx : ’ ; ' 11