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310 HISTORY OF DENTAL SURGERY

set with the set-screws. The wedges are then forced together between the
teeth to be moved and the bar; shouhl the wedges cease to act before the teeth
are propei'ly placed, tlie set-screws arc loosened, the wedges separated and tlie
bar taken up until its inner surface is again pressed against the projecting
teeth, when it is firmly set and the wedges brought into play. To move teeth
outward, the elasticity of the bow-spring is made to draw upon them by means
of the proi^er appliance. Rubber bands or ligatures may be made useful
auxiliaries. Should tlie bar at any time exhibit a tendency to slip toward the
gum, it can be held in its proper place by snapping one of the slides provided
with a hook over the cutting edge of a tooth." As will be seen, this mechanism
comprises all, or nearly all, of the valuable features that are found in the
present-day "expansion-arch." The stiffened gold wire, once bent to form,
provides the outline or guide to which the teeth are moved to conform, while
its elasticity provides the power for either expanding the arch or the moving
of individual teeth. The slides with their attachments furnish the means for
grasping the teeth to be moved outward, or by the wedgelike additions, for
forcing others inward, while the bow-wire is capable of adjustment as to length
by the set-screws.
It was undoubtedly the first appliance devised for producing a great variety
of movements, and while it was not largely adopted in jjractice, it certainly
was the prototype of the similarly operating appliances in use today.
In April, 1887. before the New York Odontological Society, there was read
a paper prepared by I. B. Davenpoet of Paris,^ on "The Significance of
the Natural Form and Arrangement of the Dental Arches of Man, with a
Consideration of the Changes Which Occur as the Result of Their Artificial
I>erangenient by Filing or by the Extraction of Teeth."
The profession had passed through the experience of and discussion upon
Dr. Arthurs method of filing the teeth on their approximal surfaces to pre-
vent the extension of caries, and the practice had for some years been discon-
tinued. So, also, the once common practice of extracting certain teeth, ttsually
the first permanent molars, either to prevent approximal decay or for the pur-
pose of relieving a crowded condition of the arches, had for years been dis-
cussed and had come to be largely abandoned, but both practices had been con-
sidered and discussed from the standpoint of a desire to benefit the teeth in
a general way and to promote their efficiency.
The relation which such filing or extraction might bear to the efficiencv of
the masticatory apparatus as a whole had not yet been publicly considered, and
it was the object of Dr. Daven])ort's paper to discuss this relationship and

1 Dental Cosmos, Vol. XXIX. p. 413.