Page 369 - My FlipBook

HISTORY OF DENTAL SURGERY 331

tlieni 11 stateliness and dignity, a professional tone and a scholarship that lias
not been excelled. The twenty volumes pnl)lished by dentists for dentists,
apart, iinenntrolled and unaided In- trade or business concerns have a place
of honor among dental journals. It is not to the credit of the profession that
they were from first to last published at a financial loss.
Mav, 18G7, the firm of Snowden and Cowman, dental dealers of Balti-
more, began the publication of a montldy dental journal under the same
name, calling it a third series, with Drs. Piggot and F. J. S. Gorgas as edit-
ors. Willie it was considered by its publishers a continuation of the old
journal it liad notliing with it in common e.xcept the name. It was to all
intents and purposes a new journal. It was a trade journal. While it un-
doubtedly filled, acceptably, a place in dental literature, it cannot be consid-
ered as occupying a prominent position. With the third volume Dr. Gorgas
became sole editor, and so continued until the twenty-fifth volume, when he
was joined by Dr. Richard Grady. After the publication of the third number
of the thirty-fourtli volume, July, 1900, the firm of Snowden and Cowman
became financially embarrassed and passed out of existence, and their journal
ended its career.
Later Dr. William Gird Beecroft, of Madison, Wis., began the publica-
tion of a dental journal, styling it "The American Journal of Dental Science,"
sometimes as a fourth series, and sometimes as the third, claiming on the
title page that it is "the oldest dental magazine in the world." This is much
to be regretted, it is not true. This repeated usurping of the honored name
of the first dental journal has caused much confusion, it is inexousal)le, and
serves no good purpose.
That the projectors of the first dental journal were not mistaken in be-
lieving there was a need for a dental journal is evidenced by the fact that its
advent was promptly followed by a liost of others, alike in our own and in
foreign lands. Most of them had a limited circulation and were sliort lived.
September 1, 1843, Samuel Wesley Stockton, the first to cater commercially
to the needs of the dental ]U'ofession, and wlio was tiien successfully conduct-
ing a dental depot at Third and Chestnut streets, Philadelphia, began the
]iublication of a dental journal entitled "Stockton's Dental Intelligencer.''
The first volume of tliis consisted of twelve numbers, eacli of four, six column
folio pages. The first nundier of the first volume was dated Sejitemlier 1,
1843. The numbers were issued regularly each month until June, 1844. The
next number, the ele\enth of the first volume, is dated May 1, 184."), anil the
twelfth and hi-:t nf this \oiume, June 3, 1845. The seconil volume, in octavo