Page 13 - My FlipBook
P. 13
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not tell you ; its fortunate discoverer will achieve an immortality
coequal witli all other great benefactors of humanity. And my selec-
tion of the present theme has been mainly for the purpose of awakening
the interest and stimulating the efforts and researches of the " American
Academv of Dental Science,"— an organization so distinguished for its
talent and culture, and so fortunate in its opportunities and environments.
When we remember the marvellous and wonderful revelations of
modern and advanced science ; when we consider the almost daily
illustration of results and achievements in chemistry, in electricity, and
in almost all other departments of science and art, that a decade ago
were regarded as wild and chimerical, as the unreal fabrics of a dis-
ordered imagination ; when we witness demonstrations that challenge
and stagger the evidence of our senses, — is it absurd or Utopian to be-
lieve and trust that persistent, intelligent, and wisely directed eftbrt and
research may not vet be rewarded by what would be the crowning tri-
umph of the nineteenth centur}', and one of the grandest benefactions
ever conferred upon humanity ? I repeat, to what body of " savans," to
what organization of earnest, cultured, and indefatigable investigators
and explorers in the arcana of nature, science, and art, and to what
organization more fortunately circumstanced and environed, can we
more hopefully look, as successful searchers for our ideal, and, we
believe, 3et attainable tooth-filling, than the " American Academy of
Dental Science " ?
As incentive and stimulus, we see what has already been found in
the zinc and vegetable plastics, imperfect and perishable as they con-
fessedly are. And we have, upon the authority of a late distinguished
professor in one of the Philadelphia schools, — Elisha Townsend,
the announcement, that from the ancient places of sepulture in the
Chinese Empire, human teeth had been exhumed containing tiUings of
a material or composition perfectly imitating the natural teeth in shade
and color, and of a crystalline, adamatine hardness that had not only
withstood the wear and abrasion of use and the decomposing secretions,
the acids and alkalies of the oral cavity, but all the agencies and
influences that had fossilized the teeth in which they were found. We
have also the testimony of a credible observer, — Dr. W. George
Heers, of Montreal, Canada, — that he has seen and examined such a
tilling in a tootii in the mouth of a living man, that had been inserted
by an operator in the far East, presumably China or Japan.
not tell you ; its fortunate discoverer will achieve an immortality
coequal witli all other great benefactors of humanity. And my selec-
tion of the present theme has been mainly for the purpose of awakening
the interest and stimulating the efforts and researches of the " American
Academv of Dental Science,"— an organization so distinguished for its
talent and culture, and so fortunate in its opportunities and environments.
When we remember the marvellous and wonderful revelations of
modern and advanced science ; when we consider the almost daily
illustration of results and achievements in chemistry, in electricity, and
in almost all other departments of science and art, that a decade ago
were regarded as wild and chimerical, as the unreal fabrics of a dis-
ordered imagination ; when we witness demonstrations that challenge
and stagger the evidence of our senses, — is it absurd or Utopian to be-
lieve and trust that persistent, intelligent, and wisely directed eftbrt and
research may not vet be rewarded by what would be the crowning tri-
umph of the nineteenth centur}', and one of the grandest benefactions
ever conferred upon humanity ? I repeat, to what body of " savans," to
what organization of earnest, cultured, and indefatigable investigators
and explorers in the arcana of nature, science, and art, and to what
organization more fortunately circumstanced and environed, can we
more hopefully look, as successful searchers for our ideal, and, we
believe, 3et attainable tooth-filling, than the " American Academy of
Dental Science " ?
As incentive and stimulus, we see what has already been found in
the zinc and vegetable plastics, imperfect and perishable as they con-
fessedly are. And we have, upon the authority of a late distinguished
professor in one of the Philadelphia schools, — Elisha Townsend,
the announcement, that from the ancient places of sepulture in the
Chinese Empire, human teeth had been exhumed containing tiUings of
a material or composition perfectly imitating the natural teeth in shade
and color, and of a crystalline, adamatine hardness that had not only
withstood the wear and abrasion of use and the decomposing secretions,
the acids and alkalies of the oral cavity, but all the agencies and
influences that had fossilized the teeth in which they were found. We
have also the testimony of a credible observer, — Dr. W. George
Heers, of Montreal, Canada, — that he has seen and examined such a
tilling in a tootii in the mouth of a living man, that had been inserted
by an operator in the far East, presumably China or Japan.
