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294 HISTORY OF DENTAL SURGEEY

ing to simple methods for assisting a single misplaced tooth to assume its
proper position.
Indeed, we know that finger pressure was used when a simple direct move-
ment was needed and that a notched piece of hard wood was often employed
to rotate a single incisor. As these methods served their purpose to a degree
it was but a step in advance to produce the same results more rapidly by the
use of a steel instrument.
Furthermore we are informed by the earlier surgical writers that it was a
very common practice to extract a tooth when its malposition caused unsight-
liness or inconvenience. The earliest record we have of even the simplest
treatment for teeth out of position is that contained in a pamphlet published
in 1541 by Egenolff/ entitled "Medicine for the Teeth, to Kee]) Tliem Good
and Sound.'' In it he says:
"It often happens that to children more than seven years of age, when
the teeth begin to drop out other teeth grow by the side of those which
are about to drop out : therefore we should loosen the tooth about falling
out from the gums, and move it to and fro until it can be taken out, and then
push the new one every day toward tlie jjlace where the first one was, until
it sits there and fits in among the other.s, for if you neglect to attend to this,
the old tooth will remain, become black, and the young one will be impeded
from growing straight, and can no more be pushed to its right place."
For nearly two centuries after this we have no record of eflorts to correct
irregularity of position of the teeth. That such attempts were made, with
possibly some success and some improvements, it is reasonable to suppose, but
as it was not customary then for those performing operations upon the teeth
to publish or communicate their ideas to others for fear of their adoption, we
liave no means of knowing just what progress was made.
However, during this long-interval dental practice, crude as it was, was
gradually passing from the hands of the surgeon and the liarlier to those of
llie surgeon-dentist. The importance of the dental organs and the necessity
for their proper care were beginning to Ijc recognized by the general surgeon,
so that the development of a class of practitioners who should devote them-
selves to the treatment of the teeth was a natural result. The first of this class
who, having been trained in general surgery eventually devoted themselves to
dental practice, was Pim-r Fiiiirli(inl. of I'cirix.
PiEEBE FArnTAiin's first work, entitled "Le Chirurgien Dentiste," w'as

Deutal Cosmos, Vcl. XXIX, p. 1.