The Impacted Lower Wisdom Tooth

Book excerpt: There has been in the last 20 years a marked expansion in clinical research in all branches of surgery. Oral surgery journals now regularly contain highly sophisticated trials of drugs used in third molar surgery. Many of the fundamental problems of health, whether normal or pathological, have been tackled using the third molar wound as the experimental model. Intelligent young surgeons need to know and understand these new developments. They need to know how to carry out investigations for themselves and to have critical insight into those of others. There is too a move in the profession not to compartmentalize knowledge. Medical and dental education is notorious for having been a matter of hurdling over obstacles of about the same height and forgetting them as soon as they are passed. The mood now is towards making a synthesis. Increasingly it is expected that knowledge of the basic sciences should be brought into the clinic. In this new book the author considers many of the basic scientific aspects of wisdom teeth management, as well as operative procedures and aftercare.