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232 HISTORY OF DENTAL SUEGEEY

From the time of its introduction the S. S. White engine has probably
been more extensively used than any other, and it still represents the standard
of excellence in foot-power engines.
"The class of dental engines called above the foitrth (automatically rotat-
ing drills driven by automatic power) is not so, however, in strict order of
time of introduction. It is here placed so because it seems naturally the
crowning caj^ability to winch such apparatus can lay claim, and because the
final improvement in engines very probably lies in this direction.
"The first attempt in this direction was made by Mr. G. F. Green, already
noticed as the inventor of the pneumatic engine. This gentleman called to
his aid electricity. In 1856 he commenced experimenting in this direction,
and after some years of effort partially overcame the difficulties encountered,
and produced the 'electrical' burring engine."
Few, if any, of these were ever manufactured and sold. Electric motors
were then in their infancy, and there was no availaVile source of electric cur-
rent for power except that generated by a battery on the premises. These diffi-
culties were sxifficient to prevent any extensive use of electric power at that
early day. Since then the perfecting of electric motors and their manufac-
ture in all sizes and for many uses, together with the almost universal avail-
ability of the electric current for light and power, distributed from central
stations, have caused electric power to supersede all other for the driving of
all dental machinery.
At one time water motors were used with much satisfaction by many who
had running water available under sufficient pressure, and one dentist of the
writer's acquaintance made for liimself a little steam engine which drove his
dental engine and lalioratory lathe, the exhaust being made noiseless and in-
offensive by being carried throiigh a pipe into a pail of water.

FILES, WHEELS, DISKS.
The various forms of cutting and abrasive instruments used with the den-
tal engine have so completely displaced the use of files (except a few forms
used by some for finishing fillings) that the modern practitioner finds it
difficult to realize the important place once occupied by files in operative den-
tistry. At a very early time comparatively little attempt was made to treat
proximal decays except such as could be removed with a file, fillings being
chiefly made in occlusal, buccal, and other readily accessible cavities, and the
earlier writings have much to say about filing teeth, usually directions as to
the manner and circumstances in which it should be done, nearly all strongly