A Subjective Appraisal of Aseptic and Sterilizing Practices in General Dentistry_ Crimson Publishers

 A Subjective Appraisal of Aseptic and Sterilizing Practices in General Dentistry by Louis Touyz ZG* in Forensic Science & Addiction Research_ International Journal of Forensic Sciences

 

Abstract

Few current 2019, general dental practitioners recall those days when antisepsis was relatively primitive compared to today. There was a time up to the mid twentieth century 1900 to 1960. When soap and hot water were considered adequate for asepsis (reducing viable organic organisms to the level of no transmission of infection). Washing hands and scrubbing finger-nails under running tepid tap-water with an antiseptic phenol-laced soap and sing “Happy birthday to oneself twice, was considered adequate to ensure manual cleanliness no transfer of microbes. Most general dental practitioners and oral health care workers like Oral Hygienists, dental assistants and nurses, all practiced with un-gloved hands. Many did not wear face masks. Eye protection was with ordinary spectacles. Exodontics and minor oral surgical procedures were done with naked hands and the likelihood of receiving or transferring any infection was considered negligible. Some endodontists claim they could digitally feel when endo-reamers reached the apex. Alginate impressions were kept moist with gauze soaked in tap-water and transported thus to technicians, with no regards to possibilities of infection. Boiling water “Sterilizers” were kept boiling all day to ‘sterilize hand instruments.”

Each time one opened the lid covering the boiling cauldron, your spectacles would steam up. Dry heat sterilization was kept for special endodontic instruments (at 120 °C overnight), and most heat labile supports like rubber tubing and bowls, plastic instruments, mixing spatulas, were simply wiped down with surgical ethanol (90%V/V). The entire operatory could be wiped down with ethanol or some other antiseptic liquid. In the mid 1950’s the contraceptive pill for females was introduced and then globally in the 1960’s much libidinous behaviour followed. In the 1970’s the scourge of HIV started to manifest when many young homosexual men between 18 and 28 were dying from AIDS. Being infected with HIV, was considered a death sentence as most HIV infected patients succumbed to AIDS with a decade of the initial infection. HIV infection from any and all sources was deemed possible, and a patient (Kimberly Bergalis) accused and her gay Dentist (Dr. Acer) of infecting her with HIV. History proved this accusation to be spurious if not false, but the publicity generated in the seventies from this case shocked the entire dental profession world-wide into adopting more stringent disinfection practices

https://crimsonpublishers.com/fsar/fulltext/FSAR.000598.php

For more articles in International Journal of Forensic Sciences,
Please click on below link: https://crimsonpublishers.com/fsar/