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Protests letter selection
bands do not turn me on. I do not understand why you believe that the dental profession should fight its bat tles with the knee-jerk, Pavlovian responses of military training. 1 have the idea that professional persons deal with problems by study and dicussion. What “ battles” do you have in mind in your editorial? JA M E S D O U G L A S , D D S OG D EN , UTAH
Protests letter selection a At the risk of sounding petty, I must register a protest to whoever selects the letters to publish in your “ Letters to the editor” column. It seems that in the past year, every publication I read has a letter or article by Dr. Hindin of Connecticut. “ Knocking” either the ADA, the state board of dental examiners, or you name it, and he will find fault with it. He even wrote a letter to the Boston papers decrying the fact that we (Massachusetts Board of Dental Examiners) enforced the attorney gen eral’s ruling in which hygienists could not drill teeth. In his latest epistle in the April j a d a , he bemoans the fact that he believes that group life insurance and a journal is all he is getting for his $ 100 ADA dues. I have been informed that he has been in the ADA for a short time. Let’s hope that, after he has been in the ADA and in practice a longer time, perhaps he will have some posi tive, constructive suggestions. But please share the wealth. You must receive some constructive let ters. ED W A R D C. M A LO O F, D M D B O STO N
Extraction and hostility ■ Will you please help me? A year ago at the request of a psychiatrist, I re moved two impacted maxillary third molars, a maxillary canine impacted in the palate, and two mandibular im
pacted second bicuspids from a hos tile, violent, male Caucasian aged 28. Recently the psychiatrist ap proached me with great enthusiasm stating his patient has done a complete turnabout; he’s kind to his family, back to work, has been promoted, no violence, and so forth. What floored me is his request that I give a talk to the staff MDs and fellow psychiatrists on how the removal of these five im pacted teeth mentioned cured(?) a raving maniac. Personally, I find this hard to be lieve. But the reason for my hesitancy and skepticism stems from the fact that, as staff dentist in two Detroit hospitals and—since moving to Battle Creek—as staff dentist on three hos pital staffs here for the past 11 years, I have never heard of a person of dan gerous behavior who inflicted bodily harm on his coworkers and members of his family being cured(?) by remov ing impacted teeth. Is there a case report or two in your files or archives that would help me out of this mess? It was darn hard enough to get up and give a paper on “ Osteomyelitis of the jaws” 38 years ago for my Detroit dental colleagues, but now, medics! Boy! This is a differ ent ball game and I get butterflies in my gastric region just thinking about this. Believe me, your help will be deep ly appreciated. E D W A R D J . A T T A R IA N , D D S B A T T L E C R E E K , M IC H
‘Caution and restraint’ ■ In reference to George Stewart’s excellent article in the April j a d a , demonstrating induced root healing by using barium sulfate added to calcium hydroxide, I must interject a word of caution and restraint. In performing endodontics we should be concerned not only with periapical bone healing but with the whole patient. Soluble toxins causing damage to other parts of the body may coexist with apical bone repair. Silver points used for years showed remarkable apical bone healing, but Seltzer showed in 1972 that silver cor
736 ■ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR / JADA, Vol. 91, O ctober 1975
rosion products that circulate in the body are quite cytotoxic. For this rea son, silver points should be discarded and new safer endodontic titanium points should be used. We are now aware of mercury in toxication, lead danger has been dis cussed in the “ Sargenti affair,” and all heavy metal salts are under suspi cion by our FDA with legislation pending to bar their use. Barium salts have been banned in Japan for use in food wrapping mater ials and shower curtains. Therefore, let us use the safest materials for en dodontics compatible with utilization. R O B E R T V IC T O R W E IS S M A N , D D S F A IR L A W N , NJ
Proper access, preparation key endodontic factors m I wish to add my opinion to that of many letters regarding the Sargenti technique. I believe that many of your writers are missing what I feel to be the essen tial point in the problem. The letter from Leonard J. Smorol (July j a d a , page 31) is a case in point. Dr. Smorol says, “ I felt I was not properly equipped to do adequate endodontia on posterior teeth.” The Sargenti technique has nothing to do with adequate preparation in endodontia. In fact, Dr. Smorol’s main point appears to be that he places un due emphasis on the efficacy of the Sargenti paste as compared to the other available cements or fillers such as Grossman’s cement, Kerr’s ce ment, gutta-percha, and silver points. The truth of the matter is that the time spent in proper access prepara tion of any tooth and instrumentation of canals are the most important as pects of endodontic treatment which, in fact, deter many practitioners from doing endodontics. In other words, the cementing medium or filling tech nique is secondary in importance and total time involved in actual canal preparation. No matter what filling technique is used, proper access and proper canal preparation must be first in order to be able to complete the endodontic treatment successfully. This would
Protests letter selection a At the risk of sounding petty, I must register a protest to whoever selects the letters to publish in your “ Letters to the editor” column. It seems that in the past year, every publication I read has a letter or article by Dr. Hindin of Connecticut. “ Knocking” either the ADA, the state board of dental examiners, or you name it, and he will find fault with it. He even wrote a letter to the Boston papers decrying the fact that we (Massachusetts Board of Dental Examiners) enforced the attorney gen eral’s ruling in which hygienists could not drill teeth. In his latest epistle in the April j a d a , he bemoans the fact that he believes that group life insurance and a journal is all he is getting for his $ 100 ADA dues. I have been informed that he has been in the ADA for a short time. Let’s hope that, after he has been in the ADA and in practice a longer time, perhaps he will have some posi tive, constructive suggestions. But please share the wealth. You must receive some constructive let ters. ED W A R D C. M A LO O F, D M D B O STO N
Extraction and hostility ■ Will you please help me? A year ago at the request of a psychiatrist, I re moved two impacted maxillary third molars, a maxillary canine impacted in the palate, and two mandibular im
pacted second bicuspids from a hos tile, violent, male Caucasian aged 28. Recently the psychiatrist ap proached me with great enthusiasm stating his patient has done a complete turnabout; he’s kind to his family, back to work, has been promoted, no violence, and so forth. What floored me is his request that I give a talk to the staff MDs and fellow psychiatrists on how the removal of these five im pacted teeth mentioned cured(?) a raving maniac. Personally, I find this hard to be lieve. But the reason for my hesitancy and skepticism stems from the fact that, as staff dentist in two Detroit hospitals and—since moving to Battle Creek—as staff dentist on three hos pital staffs here for the past 11 years, I have never heard of a person of dan gerous behavior who inflicted bodily harm on his coworkers and members of his family being cured(?) by remov ing impacted teeth. Is there a case report or two in your files or archives that would help me out of this mess? It was darn hard enough to get up and give a paper on “ Osteomyelitis of the jaws” 38 years ago for my Detroit dental colleagues, but now, medics! Boy! This is a differ ent ball game and I get butterflies in my gastric region just thinking about this. Believe me, your help will be deep ly appreciated. E D W A R D J . A T T A R IA N , D D S B A T T L E C R E E K , M IC H
‘Caution and restraint’ ■ In reference to George Stewart’s excellent article in the April j a d a , demonstrating induced root healing by using barium sulfate added to calcium hydroxide, I must interject a word of caution and restraint. In performing endodontics we should be concerned not only with periapical bone healing but with the whole patient. Soluble toxins causing damage to other parts of the body may coexist with apical bone repair. Silver points used for years showed remarkable apical bone healing, but Seltzer showed in 1972 that silver cor
736 ■ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR / JADA, Vol. 91, O ctober 1975
rosion products that circulate in the body are quite cytotoxic. For this rea son, silver points should be discarded and new safer endodontic titanium points should be used. We are now aware of mercury in toxication, lead danger has been dis cussed in the “ Sargenti affair,” and all heavy metal salts are under suspi cion by our FDA with legislation pending to bar their use. Barium salts have been banned in Japan for use in food wrapping mater ials and shower curtains. Therefore, let us use the safest materials for en dodontics compatible with utilization. R O B E R T V IC T O R W E IS S M A N , D D S F A IR L A W N , NJ
Proper access, preparation key endodontic factors m I wish to add my opinion to that of many letters regarding the Sargenti technique. I believe that many of your writers are missing what I feel to be the essen tial point in the problem. The letter from Leonard J. Smorol (July j a d a , page 31) is a case in point. Dr. Smorol says, “ I felt I was not properly equipped to do adequate endodontia on posterior teeth.” The Sargenti technique has nothing to do with adequate preparation in endodontia. In fact, Dr. Smorol’s main point appears to be that he places un due emphasis on the efficacy of the Sargenti paste as compared to the other available cements or fillers such as Grossman’s cement, Kerr’s ce ment, gutta-percha, and silver points. The truth of the matter is that the time spent in proper access prepara tion of any tooth and instrumentation of canals are the most important as pects of endodontic treatment which, in fact, deter many practitioners from doing endodontics. In other words, the cementing medium or filling tech nique is secondary in importance and total time involved in actual canal preparation. No matter what filling technique is used, proper access and proper canal preparation must be first in order to be able to complete the endodontic treatment successfully. This would