A survey of dental alloys.

No other material is so universally and successfully employed in restoring carious teeth to a state of usefulness as is dental amalgam. Besides forming such a large proportion of the fillings, the number of amalgam restorations made annually is tremendous. The office of the Surgeon General stated that 68,170,326 permanent fillings were inserted by Army dentists from December 7, 1941, to September 1, 1945, and most of them were of amal­ gam.1 Historically, amalgams were first intro­ duced in Europe in 1826 (under the name of “ silver pastes” ) and in America in 1833. Partly because of their inferior and undependable performance, but largely because they were first used by charlatans, the adoption of amalgams by the dental profession was slow. What has been called an “ amalgam war” raged, beginning in 1845. The American Society of Dental Surgeons passed a resolution in 1845 which reads: Resolved, That any member of the Society who shall hereafter refuse to sign a certificate pledging himself not to use any amalgam, and, moreover, protesting against its use, under any circumstance, in dental practice, shall be ex­ pelled from the Society.

[1]  K. Strader.  Amalgam alloy; its heat treatment, flow, mercury content and distribution of dimensional change. , 1949, Journal of the American Dental Association.

[2]  Smith Ea.  Particle size of dental amalgam alloys. , 1949 .

[3]  Smith Ea.  Vitallium as a substitute for dental gold casting alloys. , 1948 .

[4]  E. C. Miller.  Clinical factors in the use of amalgam. , 1947, Journal of the American Dental Association.

[5]  R. Phillips,et al.  Importance of the mercury-alloy ratio to the amalgam filling. , 1947, Journal of the American Dental Association.

[6]  L. H. Roper.  Restorations with amalgam in the Army; an evaluation and analysis. , 1947, Journal of the American Dental Association.

[7]  W. Harvey.  Some recent research into dental amalgams at the R.A.F. Institute of Aviation Medicine, Farnborough, Hants. , 1946, British dental journal.

[8]  J. C. Smith.  The chemistry and metallurgy of dental materials , 1946 .

[9]  C. M. McCauley.  Indictment of contaminated amalgam. , 1946, Journal - Southern California State Dental Association.

[10]  R. Phillips.  Dental amalgam. A reaction involving measurement of minute dimensional change , 1945 .

[11]  R. Phillips,et al.  Clinical Observations on Amalgam with Known Physical Properties Final Report , 1945 .

[12]  Gilbert Herman Siddle.  The technique of stainless steel work in mechanical dentistry , 1945 .

[13]  J. T. Sweeney.  Manipulation of Amalgam to Prevent Excessive Distortion and Corrosion , 1944 .

[14]  Robert K. Brown.  Present-Day Trends in Operative Dentistry , 1943 .

[15]  R. Phillips,et al.  Clinical Observations on Amalgams with Known Physical Properties , 1943 .

[16]  G. Dickson,et al.  Base Metal Alloys for Oral Restorations , 1943 .

[17]  J. Bernier,et al.  Histologic Studies on the Reaction of Alveolar Bone to Vitallium Implants , 1943 .

[18]  J. Jarabak.  The Effect of Particle Size on Dimensional Change in Dental Amalgams , 1942 .

[19]  Erling Thoen.  Gold Foil: Its Selection, Characteristics, Manipulation and Insertion , 1942 .

[20]  R. Phillips,et al.  Physical Properties of Wrought Alloys Used in Dentistry , 1942 .

[21]  B. Bell,et al.  Chrome alloy techniques , 1941 .

[22]  R. F. Vines.  The Platinum Metals And Their Alloys , 1941 .

[23]  S. Trieff.  Hodgen-shell dental materials , 1939 .

[24]  C. S. Venable,et al.  ELECTROLYSIS CONTROLLING FACTOR IN THE USE OF METALS IN TREATING FRACTURES , 1938 .

[25]  L. Walsh.  Five years with chrome alloy , 1938 .

[26]  J. Carman.  Metallurgy and uses of chrome alloy in orthodontics , 1938 .

[27]  H. Yost.  Practicability of Chrome Nickel Alloys for Orthodontic Use , 1936 .

[28]  O. E. Harder.  Modern dental metallography , 1930 .

[29]  W. E. Harper.  The Significance to Dentists of Physicochemical Changes Incidental to Amalgamation and the Hardening of Dental Amalgams , 1925 .

[30]  Arthur W. Gray.  Transition Phenomena in Amalgams1 , 1921 .

[31]  Arthur W. Gray.  Metallographic Phenomena Observed in Amalgams , 1919 .