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HISTORY OF DENTAL SUEGEEY 237

tist will ever adopt this very objectionable mode of performing the operation."
The first official recorded explication of the use of the mallet by Dr. Atkinson
was in 1801, before the Pennsylvania Association of Dental Surgeons. The
editor of the "Transactions" mentions' the "entertaining and instructive
character of the proceedings" and names as "the principal objection" to its
employment "the necessity of always requiring an assistant to use it properly."
This objection was soon found to be one of semblance and not of reality. The
American Dental Association, at the meeting of ISOli, passed a resolution of
thanks to Dr. Atkinson "for the introduction of the mallet in dental practice,
and for his kind and efficient teachings in its use." - In acknowledging this
recognition. Dr. Atkinson referred his first knowledge of the instrument to
Dr. E. Merrit, of Fittsl)urg, in 1838.
"Upon the introduction of the mallet, the attention of dental inventors
was immediately turned toward making the principle automatic. Who was
the first that presented such an instrument it is exceedingly difficult (and
perhaps impossible) now to determine.
"In cjuick succession (not here exactly given), appeared Foote's, Taylor's,
Home's, Salmon's, and the Snow & Lewis automatic pluggers, all on the
spring and (except Home's) 'touch-blow' principle; Baxter's and Pomroy's,
also spring instruments; Bannister's, Green's, and Gaylord's, on the pneumatic
principle; Buckingham's, operated by the White dental engine; and the
'electric' mallets of Green, Bonwill, Jack, and Webb. The possibility of
such a list was certainly not contemplated by Dr. Koecker when he deprecated
"
the use of the 'hammer and punch.'
The developments since the above was written have lieen chiefly in details
of construction and )ierfccfion of manufacture. The Snow & Lewis still
maintains a leading ])osition among the instruments of that class, and the
various forms of engine mallets and electric mallets are greatly prized by
many of those who use them.
EXTRACTING INSTRUMENTS.'

"The first reasonably complete set of forceps was the work of Dr. J. F.
Flagg in 1828.
THE OPERATING CHAIR.

"This important accessory in operative dentistry is (at least as now seen)
1 Dental Cosmos, Vol. Ill, p. 25S.
- Transactions of the American Dental Assn., 1866, p. 242.
" History of Dental anil Oral Science in America.