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HISTORY OF DENTAL SUEGEEY
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tive metliod in severe odontalgia. He advised the extraction of the afflicted
tooth and its immediate replacement, and claimed originality for this practice.
BouEDET, a French dentist, in the middle of the eighteenth century in-
dignantly and contemptuously refers to a charlatan of his period who im-
planted teeth in the holes made for this purpose in the jaws. Bourdet could
not then foresee that this very operation, daringly undertaken by an Ameri-
can dentist in the last years of the nineteenth century, should give to him a
great reputation as a skillful discoverer.
In 1746, MouTON first described gold crowns, constructed for the preser-
vation of much decayed teeth, and he enameled these crowns, when con-
structed as substitutes for the front teeth, so that tliey should more closely
reseml)le the natural teeth. He is also given credit for having been the first
to introduce artificial teeth held in place by means of clasps instead of
ligations, which had previously been the means of retaining partial artificial
substitutes.

Philip Pfaif, who was the dentist to Frederick the Great of Prussia, in
1776, described the use of wax as a material to take impressions in, from
which he obtained plaster models. He has been credited with being the
first to have attempted the operation of capping exposed puljjs, and he made
artificial teeth out of mother of pearl.

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.
As in France, so in England, the barber-surgeon was the earlier repre-
sentative of the dental practitioner. He was generally closely identified with
the medical profession. The "Company of Barber Surgeons" in England
was incorporated by Edward IV. in 1461. A law forbidding the practice
of surgery by any one \\ho had not passed a previous examination was
enacted, in 1511, by Parliament. The title of the organization was changed
to "The Company of Barbers and Surgeons," and the only surgical opera-
tions permitted to the barbers was that of extracting teeth. In 1-516 a
preamble of an act of parliament declared tliat the trade of the barber was
independent and foreign to the practice of surgery, and in 1745 the barbers
and surgeons were entirely divorced. The surgeons organized and were
known as the "Surgeon Company," and in tlie year 1800 this gave place to-
the "Royal College of Surgeons of London." The several "Royal Colleges
of Physicians and Surgeons" in England, Scotland and Ireland constitute
the medical profession of the British Isles today. What became of the