Page 198 - My FlipBook

166 HISTORY OF DENTAL SUEGERY

other remedy ; or on the other hand, if it do, to apply the proper remedy in
a decided and scientific manner."
These extracts will serve to show how little was attempted at that time in
the line of operative dentistry and what meager resources in the way of
instruments and appliances the dentists of that day had at their command.
It has always been necessary to extract teeth and there have always been
men mIio could do it, and the equipment for that purpose seems to have been
fairly adequate, as it probably has been for ages previously. The filling of
teeth with much prospect of duraliility seems to have been limited to occlusal
cavities, possibly a few buccal and lingual ones, but from the author's account
it woiild seem that proximal filling had little chance of permanence unless the
adjacent tooth were lost or immunity to caries were established soon after the
operations were made. Teeth in which the pulps became exposed appear to
have been doomed to speedy loss or to a condition of chronic alveolar abscess.
The S. S. White Company published, in 1876, a history of dentistry in
America which liad been compiled and written for the American Academy
of Dental Science, of Boston. The writers of that work appear to have
searched the American literatiire of the profession pretty thoroughly, and as
the book has been a good while out of print, it has seemed advisable to quote
very freely from the chapter on operative dentistry instead of making an
independent search through the same authorities. Credit is given in foot-
notes to the original sources of information the same as in the history.

A HISTORY OF DENTAL AND ORAL SCIENCE IN AMERICA.
S. S. White, 1876.
"It is impossible to discover when, where or by whom the opera-
tion of filling teeth was introduced. It lias been claimed for Celsus (100
B. C), but the claim cannot, we think, be substantiated. The only reference
to the operation in question to be found in the works of that ^^Titer is his
recommendation to stuff with lead decayed and frail teeth irliich are to he
extracted, in order that they may not break under the forceps} (P. 51.)
''Up to the year 1800, the filling of teeth was an operation practiced only
by the best dentists. It is probable that it attained a prominent position in
operative dentistry sooner in this country than in others; for, in the works
of most foreign (and particularly French) dentists, even so late as 1835, we

^ Celsus de Mediea, lib. 7, cap. 3, Sec. 5.