Page 13 - My FlipBook

INTRODUCTION.

EvER^' dentist who has ever given an\- thought to the development of
his profession must have reaHzed the growing necessity for an accessible
and authoritative historv of the dental art. The early efforts in this
direction hv Duval, Fitch, Carabelh, Snell, Linderer, Harris, and others,
followed in this countr\' bv the more recent essays of Ferine, Dexter, and
Cigrand, are out of print and difficult to obtain. The Geschichte der Zahn-
heilkujide, by Geist-Jacobi, and Notice sur VHistoire de I'Art Dentaire,
by Lemerle, have given to the practitioners of Germany and France
valuable information which the English-speaking dentist has often sadh'
lacked.
Realizing this situation, at the first meeting of the National Dental
Association, the late Dr. R. Finley Hunt offered the resolution: "That
a Committee of Three be appointed b\- the Fresident to report at the
next annual meeting a measure looking to the preparation of r full history
of the Dental Profession." After a careful consideration of the subject,
this committee reluctantly concluded that, "whereas a complete history
of dentistr}' may some da\- be the result of the effort now being made,
this Association must confine its first attempts to the histor\' of dentistry
in America." In a letter to the committee the late Dr. W. D. Miller said:
"Of course, a universal history of dentistry would be very interesting and
valuable, but its compilation would naturally cost an immense amount
of labor." Aside from this, it did not seem possible that the data for
a proper history of the early development of the dental art in Africa and
Europe could be collected b\- an association working in America.
After several years of what may have seemed a policy of masterh in-
activity the unexpected happened, and the committee was able to report
at the Buffalo meeting of the Association that Dr. Vincenzo Guerini,
of Naples, Italy, had written a history of dentistry from the earliest
times to the beginning of the nineteenth centurx , and that this work,
translated into English and fully revised, had been generously placed
in the hands of the committee for publication under the auspices of the
National Dental Association, in token of the distinguished author's
appreciation of American dental development.
fi The Association, deeply sensible of this high compliment, and fully
,f realizing this opportunity for accomplishing a purpose which had hitherto