When commercially produced electricity become available, C.E Kells built an electrical control panel, to which he attached an electric dental drill. Today we strongly discourage using the term "dental drill" and instead use the term "dental handpiece". Whatever term you may use, Kells technology is still used in this century, with a few updates. Each time you have decay removed from a tooth and a filling place, a dental handpiece is used. Currently, there is no substitute for the dental handpiece, though there are other devices used for composite fillings, and lasers are being used more and more as their capabilities are increasingly defined.
