A PRACTICAL USE OF GUTTAPERCHA IN VETERINARY 
DENTAL SURGERY. 6lg 
Then leaving it in hot water (for it very soon hardens after 
taking it out of the water), I got the patient ready by placing 
the speculum in his mouth, and the parts cleaned. Then taking 
the ball in my left hand and passing it into the alveola through 
the mouth I pushed it upward and at the same time, with one 
finger of the right hand in the trephined hole, I pressed down on 
the upper end of the ball and by this means pressed it outward 
until it filled the cavity perfectly and formed a good flange above 
and below to prevent the plug from slipping, and treated it as a 
single wound. It readily healed, and to all outward appearances 
the horse was well and remained so for five or six years, at the 
end of which, notwithstanding my repeated warnings, they al¬ 
lowed the lower tooth to become so long as to push the plug up 
into the sinus and he was as bad as ever. 
Since then I have operated on several of this class in the 
same way, and always with success, except on one horse, when 
I tried to substitute dental rubber for guttapercha, and after two 
failures I had to return to the guttapercha, which proved suc¬ 
cessful. The rubber was too soft and would not harden sufficiently 
in the mouth to withstand the pressure of mastication. None of 
these cases showed such extensive caries of the palatine process 
as the first, but rather a distinction of the alveola process leaving 
the bone exposed, which did not seem to possess the power of 
closing up. This may be due to the large size of the cavity, 
which contains such a large quantity of food as to become a 
constant irritant. In one case that had been well irrigated 
several times daily for many months. And on trephining I 
found the tissues in a clean, healthy condition, the mucous 
membrane of the sinus having united with that of the mouth 
through the cavity formerly occupied by the tooth. I operated 
as above with the same results. 
And now, after an experience of eight years, I never hesitate 
to lesoit to its use in all cases when the alveola does not show 
a disposition to readily heal. And I believe I can safely 
say that few operations have given me better satisfaction than 
these. 
