Gold

Abstract

Gold, in various forms, has been used by dentists for thousands of years. In early times it was chosen for its indestructibility in oral fluids and used in the form of wire to bind a number of human or artificial teeth together and to attach them to abutment teeth in the patient’s mouth to form primitive types of bridge. Much later, the fact that gold possesses the property of cold welding was used to mallet small pieces of pure gold together in a retentive cavity until the tooth contour was restored. For this purpose specially prepared sheets or cylinders of pure gold, beaten microscopically thin and freed from all impurities, were annealed in a mica tray and carried to the isolated tooth on gold foil pluggers, and each increment was welded to the previously condensed portion.