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240 world's history and

DENMARK.

Area, 14,124 square miles. Population, 2,185,159.
Capital, Copenhagen; population, 375,251.

Dentistry has always, in the laws of Denmark, been consid-
ered a specialty of medicine. As a rule, the practice of dentistry
has been open only to regular physicians. The progress and de-
velopment of dentistry has, however, converted this rule into an
exception.
Already at the end of the last century, when the use of arti-
ficial teeth became more common, a want was felt for more skill-
ful and experienced dentists, especially in the prosthetic part of
the art. Hence a special examination for prospective practitioners,
not physicians, in this special branch of medicine was, in 1796,
ordered to be held at the Chirurgical Academy, and the first ex-
amination took place March 20, 1798. This examination became
later a requirement, almost exclusively, for candidates of dent-
istry, as the regularly authorized physicians in the latter half of
this century became a very insignificant minority of the whole
number of practicing dentists.
Until the present time, the practice of dentistry has mostly
been governed through administrative decrees or regulations
derived from the ordinance regarding quackery, of September
5,
1794. Section 6 of that ordinance reads: " If any one who is
not a regular physician shall have acquired special proficiency
or extraordinary knowledge in some part or another of the med-
ical art, or in the curing of some disease or another, he may,
after having proved himself to possess such proficiency, by the
testimony of the governor and physician, expect to receive
through the Chancelly a license to practice; but only in the dis-
trict where he lives, and his right to prescribe medicine shall be
limited within the parts in which he has proved himself pro-
ficient."
This ordinance is still to be considered as the fundamental
law for the power of the administration to confer license to prac-
tice dentistry upon other persons than authorized physicians, as
there is no later legislation relative to this point.
It is, therefore, ruled by the Department of Justice (as suc-
cessor to the Chancelly, in 1849,) that, according to the present
law, the privilege to practice dentistry can not be conferred upon
all who have fulfilled certain requirements, but that it always re-