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138 HISTOEY OF DENTAL SURGERY

dental diseases are the most conunon of all affections of the human economy,
and that few individuals reacli mature life without having developed dental
caries and other kindred diseases of the teeth and mouth.
The importance of the organs of mastication is so great as preservers of
healthful digestion and assimilation that every effort should be made to cou-
eerve them in a healtliy and iiseful condition. Such conservation of the teeth
by prophylactic and operative measures would prevent much acute suffering
and, it was believed, would greatly improve the general health, and thereby
maintain a liigher standard of efficiency.
From time to time various efforts have been made to secure the establish-
ment of a corps of dental surgeons in the army and navy of the United States.
Essays have been read upon tlie subject before medical and dental societies,
and resolutions have been passed calling the attention of the war and navy
departments to the great need of such service among the officers and enlisted
forces of the army and navy, but no action was taken by the heads of tliese
departments until after the opening of the Spanish-American war. Previous
to this time all communications upon the subject were received with official
politeness and "])laeed on file for future reference."
During the Civil war an effort was made to secure dental service in the
T^nion army, I)ut the idea was not received with favor by the war department.
A similar effort was made in the Confederate army and it succeeded in so far
that several dentists were regularly commissioned as members of the medical
department and assigned for duty at the large hospitals. Notable among these
was Dr. Bean, who became very siiccessful in the treatment of fractures of
the mandible by interdental splints. A certain amount of general dental
service was rendered at these base hospitals, but the service was not carried
to the men in the field.
In the Union armies the only dental service rendered was that of lancing
a "gum boil" and the extraction of teeth. The latter service was usually per-
formed by a hospital steward, whose only qualification for this service was
generally the fact that he possessed a muscular riglit arm.
The victims, God rest their souls, after one experience with the hospital
steward were not usually willing to submit to such treatment a second time,
liut preferred, as Hamlet said, to
Rather bear the ills we have
Thau fly to others that we know not of.
Tn 1881 tlie writer of this article addressed letters of inquiry to several
prominent military and naval officers requesting their opinion as to whether