Page 23 - My FlipBook

;

INTRODUCTION

Being about to present to the public, as our title page
imports, a popular essay on the diseases and management
of the teeth ; it may not be altogether inappropriate, in-
asmuch as the work is not designed exclusively for the
use of the dental profession, but for general utility, to render
some of the principal reasons which have influenced us in
undertaking, and guided us in the prosecution of it.
And first, the great propensity to disease, to which, in
this our country, the teeth are unfortunately liable ; and
the consequent urgent necessity of some fixed and definite
rules to guide the citizen to the means by which he
may obviate the same, when it may be obviated, and
when it may not be, to point out, next the appropriate and
only safe means by which it may be effectually remedied
at least, so far as the individual case will admit of remedy.
Second, the existing necessity of such a work ; there
being none upon our subject, extant, that is at all applicable
to popular use.
Third, a laudable desire to "contribute our voluntary,
though feeble aid, for the object of exalting the abused pro-
fession, of which we are a member, to that respectability
which the imperious necessity of its existence in our country*