Medicine: Jan Keeps His Own

In Hollywood, Md. five weeks ago, an eight-year-old boy named Jan Dockin was playing on the sidewalk when he fell and struck one of his upper front teeth (a permanent one) on the pavement. The tooth was knocked loose at the roots and driven up into the boy's jaw, almost out of sight. Jan's parents rushed him to a Washington, D.C. dentist, Dr. Edward J. Slattery.

Dr. Slattery had read scientific reports telling how such injured and dislocated teeth could be taken out and successfully reimplanted in their own sockets, and had done it once himself. He pulled the embedded tooth, took out the dead nerve, plugged the base of the tooth with porcelain to prevent discoloration. Thereafter, he departed from standard practice in two ways. Instead of sterilizing the tooth with alcohol (which he feared might injure the blood clot necessary to hold the tooth in place), Dr. Slattery used aureomycin. Instead of ramming the tooth back into place by force (which he feared might injure the gum tissues), he inserted it as gently as he could, patiently held it in the socket for 20 minutes, while the first soft clot began to form around the roots. Finally, he sent Jan and his parents home with instructions.

For ten hours, Jan's mother & father took turns holding the tooth in place, while the blood clot, which was acting as a natural cement, grew steadily harder. Last week Jan Dockin's tooth seemed to be firmly rooted, healthy new tissue had grown around its base, and Dr. Slattery was confident that it would serve Jan indefinitely, short of such complications as another tumble on the sidewalk.