Page 11 - My FlipBook

The deportment of the dentist, in his professional intercourse, should
be characterized by decision and firmness, tempered and softened by
courtly manners, chaste hmguage, and the observance of all the rules
and requirements of polite and cultured society. No rudeness of
speech and no coarseness of manner should blur or blemish the
escutcheon of the accomplished and self-respecting dentist. The dental
office, the reception and operating rooms, should be made inviting and
attractive in their equipment and appointments; books, pictures,
flowers, bric-a-brac, and musical instruments would not be out of
place.
Our instruments and appliances should be of the best procurable
material and workmanship ; our cutters, our knives, lancets, scissors,
chisels, and excavators should be kept sharp, and they, and all other
implements, should be thoroughly cleansed and disinfected after every
operation. The dentist should ever keep before his mental vision the
maxim that "cleanliness is next to Godliness." The operative im-
plements and appliances of a dentist should always be kept out of view
until required for actual use. A glittering array of sharpened and
pointed steel will often shock and appall the timid patient, and be
suggestive of wretchedness and torture, rather than relief and comfort.
A careful observance and cheerful and polite attention to the wants
and needs, the satisfaction and ease, of patients in the reception-room
or in the operating-chair, and an air and manner of gentleness and
sympathy with the timid and fearful, will largely disarm the dentist's
office and his operations of their terrors, and secure for him the
respect, the confidence, and affectionate regard of his clientele.
So much for the characteristics, the qualities and attributes, the
appointments, paraphernalia, and deportment of the dentist who
would be not only faithful and thorough, but aesthetic, in his pro-
fessional ministrations and practice.
We will now, Mr. President and gentlemen of the " Academy,"
consider ajsthetics as a practical requirement in advanced operative
and prosthetic dentistr}'. And for striking illustration and comparison,
I select the grand, the major, and commanding operation of tooth-
filling luith gold.^ a metal and material that subordinates and over-
shadows all else now known and employed in the preservation of
decaying human teeth, a metal and material that in purity, effective-
ness, and available applications has stood the test of ages, and given to