US553451A - Absorbent for amalgam fillings - Google Patents

Description

I/V VEA/TOR ATTORNEYS,

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Patented Jan.

J. W. DENNIS. v ABSORBBNT FOR AMALGAM PILLINGS.

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(No Model.)

WITNESSES 4o mined degree.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES IV. DENNIS, OF CINCINNATI, OI-IIO.

ABSORBENT FOR AMALGAM FlLLlNGS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 553,451, dated January 21, 1896.

Application filed September 23, 1895. Serial No. 563,408. (No specimens.)

T aZl whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JAMES IV. DENNIS, of Cincinnati, in the county of Hamilton and State of Ohio, have invented a new and Improved Absorbent for Amalgam Fillings, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

My invention relates to absorbents for amalgam fillings and to a method of making the 0 same; and the object of the invention is to provide a material capable of being made into pads or plugs of any size or shape adapted to enter a cavity of a tooth, the material being of such nature as to provide means for the 5 production of perfect non-shrinkable amalgam fillings by acting as an absorbent or attractor for the surplus or loose amalgam.

The invention consists in the novel construction and combination of the several 0 parts, as will be hereinafter fully set forth,

and pointed out in the claims.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings, forming apart of this specification, in which similar characters of reference indi- 5 dicate corresponding parts in both the views.

Figure 1 is a plan view of a sheet of absorbent material for amalgam filling, illustrating sundry pads as having been cut therefrom; and Fig. 2 is a plan view of a sheet of the 0 same material, illustrating a slight modification in the composition thereof.

The invention may be said to consist primarily in pulverizing rubber and tin, the two articles being in such proportions that the rub- 5 ber will become in a measure saturated, or will hold a maximum quantity of tin. The compound thus made is partially vulcanized, the vulcanization ceasing at such a point as will leave the rubber pliable to a predeter- The object of this article is that various plugs, pads or forms may be cut out therefrom and pressed by proper instruments into the cavity of a tooth upon the amalgam, during the process of filling. The excess of mercury will be extracted from the filling by the double process of suction and absorption of the amalgam by the tin contained in the rubber, the mercury having, as is well known, a strong affinity for tin.

o The rubber pads,plugs or forms constructed as aforesaid, act in the capacity of sponges and the tin as an attractor.

In Fig. 1 the sheet A of prepared material is illustrated as provided with openings a, the said openings being consequent upon the removal of portions of the sheet used as pads,

'ity by this method or process or by the use of this material in association with suitable instruments accomplishes among others the following desirable results: first, it obviates the necessity for the excessive and painful force usually required to obtain a favorable result; secondly, by drawing from each piece of filling, as it is added to the mass occupying the cavity of the tooth, the excess of mercury,

what is known as balling, or the tendency to return to the globular form of all metallic atoms in association with mercury or dental amalgam, is prevented, thus leaving the tooth with an absolutely non-shrinkable filling. So effective is this material in its action on the amalgam filling that even after the filling is apparently dry and hard, by a continued pressure upon the finished surface for one or two minutes the surface will again present sufficient mercury to amalgamate an atom of gold foil, and by ceasing the pressure upon and removing the absorbent plug or pad the sur plus mercury will quickly disappear, being reabsorbed by the filling, thus proving that so long as there is more mercury in the filling than is required for the amalgamation or union of the combined metals it may by the use of this device be brought to the surface and removed.

I desire it to be understood that although rubber is preferred as the body of the improved absorbent material, the said body may be made of pulp, fabric, felt, or like material, brought to a consistency corresponding substantially to that heretofore described with reference to the rubber.

Having thus described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent- 1. An absorbent of mercury during the process of filling teeth with amalgam, the same consisting of a body of soft material, and tin structing an absorbent for amalgam fillings, which consists in saturating comminuted rubber with comminuted tin and partially vulcanizing the mass, as and for the purpose set forth.

JAMES W. DENNIS.

WVitnesses EDWARD S. RAWSON, LoUIs A. BROWNBEOK.

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