Medicine: Tooth Graft

Almost 2,000 years ago, the Incas of Peru used to yank out aching teeth, then stick them back in their sockets and pray for them to grow firm again. It never worked.

Last week, Dentist C. W. Messinger of Houghton, Mich, told members of the Chicago Dental Society that he had streamlined the ancient practice of tooth replacement and that now it did work. First he extracts an abscessed tooth, and removes the jaw abscess. Then he scrapes out all the pulp in the root canal of the tooth, sterilizes it, and fills the...

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