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REVIEW OF DENTISTRY. 251

of the promulgation of the law of the year XL, the liberty of the
exercise of the professions, arts and trades had been proclaimed,
by the decree of May 2-17, 1791, and the faculties of Medicine
and Surgery having been abolished by the decree of August 18,
1792, there did not exist more than one way of re-establishing:
by disposing of its Article 1, that nobody could practice the pro-
fession of a physician, surgeon, or health officer, or obtain the
right to practice the healing art, without having been examined
and admitted, according to the prescriptions. It follows, from
its Article 3, that these provisions could be applicable only to
such doctors of medicine and surgeons, admitted by the ancient
faculties of Medicine and Surgery and the surgical societies, who
practiced the healing art in 1791; according to Articles 126 and
129 of the ordinance of May, 1768, it existed independently from
the doctors of medicine, and the surgeons admitted, according to
the forms indicated by Article 3 of the law of Ventose 19, of
the year XI., expert dentists who devoted themselves exclusively
to the cure of the teeth. This Article 3 evidently does not in-
clude among the doctors of medicine and surgeons the expert
dentists. One cannot suppose that the individual who had ob-
tained, in the form and according to the conditions established
in the edict of 1768, nothing else but the title of Expert Dentist,
should be entitled, under the conditions contained in Articles
3
and 23 of the law of Ventose, XL, to acquire the right to practice
medicine and surgery, even under the restrictions said law in-
flicted on the mere health officer. It follows, therefore, that per-
sons who only exercise the practice of dentistry are not submit-
ted to the previously necessary conditions regarding the studies,
examination and admission that this law prescribes."
The judgment of the "Cour de Paris" having been reversed,
this question, of such importance to the dental world, was carried
to another court of appeal. The court of Amiens was designated
as a reference tribunal. In a decree, dated June 26, 1846, this
court decided that "if it is theoretically true, that the dental
art, considered in extenso shall be to the healing art what the part
is to the whole, it is equally true that the dental profession can
consider itself limited to such performances, and practical in-
dentures as extraction of teeth, and making artificial dentures;
that, indeed, this limited profession for many long years has
been exercised by a herd of individuals, not provided with
diplomas, and without other requisite medical qualities than