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REVIEW OF DENTISTRY. 223

the colony regarding the practice of medicine and pharmacy,
dated February 20, 1884, but none regarding the practice of dent-
istry. The dentists are only required to pay an annual fee of
thirty francs.

PARAGUAY.

(republic.)

Area, 91,970 square miles. Population, 430,000.
Capital, Asuncion; population, 24,£
It gives us great pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of the
following sketch of the history of dentistry in Paraguay, for-
warded by United States Vice-Consul at Asuncion, E. M. Flagg,
Doctor of Dental Surgery. It is dated January 18, 1893, and
contains the following valuable information:
The progress of professional matters in this Republic is re-
cent and rapid. It dates from the close of the famous war of
Paraguay against the combined armies of Uruguay, Argentine
Republic and Brazil, which ended in 1870, after five years' dura-
tion, in the almost total extermination of the Paraguayans, the
population being reduced, according to some authorities, from
1,300,000 to 150,000. Previous to this war, the country had been
virtually closed to the outside world. In the United States we
would call this closure " protection." The brain of the people
had long been ruled by an ecclesiastical despotism, which was
succeeded by a political despotism.
Science is ever opposed to despotism They cannot well
exist together, and science was not allowed to flourish in Para-
guay. As a compensation for the slavery of mind and body, the
Paraguayans always had plenty to eat and drink and smoke, and
if they had nothing but superstitions, with which to cure their
diseases, they at least had no starvation.
The war had one good effect: It brought the people in con-
tact with other people, and gave their minds a chance to act,
through the interchange of ideas. Soon after the close of the
war, a remnant of survivors, some of whom had been educated
abroad, met in Asuncion, and formed a constitution, modeled