Page 284 - My FlipBook

262 THIRD PERIOD—MODERN TIMES

his mode of operating and with the knowledge acquired through the
successful treatment ot a great number of important cases.
"What this celebrated surgeon-dentist has not done, I today dare to
undertake. I shall at least afford an example of what he might have done
with greater erudition and better success.
"From my youth I was destined to the surgical profession; the other
arts I have practised^ have never made me lose sight of it. I was the
disciple of Alexandre Poteleret, surgeon-in-chief to His Majesty's ships,
who had great experience in diseases of the mouth. To him I owe the
first rudiments of the knowledge I have acquired in the surgical speciality
I practise, and the progress I made under this able man gave me the
emulation that has led me to further important discoveries. I have
collected among different writers what seemed to me most reliable.
I have frequently discussed these matters with the ablest surgeons and
doctors of my acquaintance, and have neglected nothing in order to profit
by their counsels and by their ideas.
"The experience which I have acquired during an uninterrupted prac-
tice of more than forty years has led me insensibly to the acquirement of
further knowledge and to the modification of what seemed to me defective
in my earlier ideas. 1 offer to the public the results of my labors and of
my studies, hoping that they may be of some use to those who wish to
exercise the profession of surgeon dentist."
The reason why dentists before the time of Fauchard published hardly
anything concerning their art, was perhaps out of a sentiment of jealousy,
which rendered them (that is, the best of the profession and therefore the
ones most capable of writing) but little disposed to make known to others
the results of their studies and of their experience, lest the fruits of their
long labors should be utilized by others and they themselves be materially
damaged by competition. That this sentiment of jealous egotism
really existed in manv dentists may be, in a certain manner, deduced from
a few words of Fauchard himself, who, although he has the very great
merit of breaking with mean, old-world prejudices, nevertheless expresses
the prevalent idea of the time, consisting in the belief that every arti-
ficer, every inventor, had not only the right, but also the duty of surround-
ing his discoveries with secrecy and mystery. These are the words in
which, making known a certain improvement in dental prosthesis in-
vented by him, he at the same time exjjressed his conviction that by so
doing he is acting against his own interests:
" 1 have perfected and also invented several artificial pieces both for
substituting a part of the teeth and for remedying their entire loss, and

' We liavc- nor Ixcn able to find any work in which particuhir records of Fauchard's life
are given, and hence do nor know ro which of rhc orher arrs he had dedicated himself.