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9&i
 
 
 
 
 
THE  CLAIMS  OF  DENTISTRY.
AN    ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE
            COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES
                       OF THE

DENTAL    DEPARTMENT

                         IN

        HARVARD   UNIVERSITY,

                  February 14, 1872.


                        BY
     OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES,  M.D.,
PARKMAN PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY.
.<*
,v Ccn/;$,,,
V/Th.
           BOSTON:
PRINTED BY RAND, AVERY, & CO.
              1872. 
WU
^isz,.....
 i8V. 
The Claims  of Dentistry.
   We have met, under the auspices of Harvard
University, to recognize by formal ceremonies the
entrance of a class of students in dentistry upon
the exercise of  their profession.   We give  to this
occasion the time-hallowed name of Commence-
ment.   Here ends the period of pupilage; here
begins the life of applied knowledge and skill.
   "Commencement" is not a word to conjure with,
as it was a century ago, when  it  paralyzed for the
day the commerce of the  neighboring  town, and
emptied  all  the villages in a  circle of fifty miles
of their black-coated and white-wigged clergymen.
It is  not the grand  pageant  as  I remember it,
when  the  Governor made his  entrance to  the
academic precincts with a troop of horse  and  a
cavalcade of white-frocked truckmen;  when  the
Common was covered with tents, as  if an army
had encamped upon it, and the trafficking and the
revelries  of  Bartholomew  Fair were  enacted on 
4
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
the provincial scale  upon the green  consecrated
to the quiet pursuits of learning.
   But this Commencement of the Dental School
has a real significance, though it makes little show,
and does  not appeal to  any vulgar interest.   It
publishes  the fact that a new  pursuit has been
assigned its place among those chosen  professions
which  a  fully-organized  educational  institution
may fitly take in  hand, and  provide for teaching.
And you may be  assured, that,  before our  old
university would  take  such  a step, its governing
boards had  satisfied  themselves that the time was
fully ripe  for it.   The  dental  profession  had
achieved its success, and had won its place  in
the estimate of the  intelligent public, before  its
teachers were asked  to share the  labors and  the
dignities which belong to the faculties of this great
institution.
   The  occasion  must naturally bring  together
many who  have  no other special  knowledge  of
dentistry than such as they have gained while
sitting in one of those masac  chairs which  fit
alike the giant and the dwarf, which would accom-
modate  the  visitors  of Procrustes, and suit itself
to all the transformations of Proteus.   Were this
an  assemblage of dentists  and  dental  students
only, who  would  dare to  open  his  mouth  for
speech  before  the  members of  a profession  in
whose  presence kings are silent,  at whose com- 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
0
mand  eloquence is  struck dumb, and even the
irresistible and  irrepressible voice of woman is
hushed into a  brief interval of  repose?  Even
if this first fear were overcome, a speaker might
well hesitate to  address  an audience of experts,
who know all that he is like  to tell  thern^ and a
great deal more.   But this  hour does not belong
only to our friends of the dental  profession; and
they can bear to listen to much  that is familiar to
them for the sake of their visitors, whose knowl-
edge  is limited  to what they have acquired after
the manner of poets, of whom Shelley says, —

     " They learn in suffering what they teach in song."

   A few generalities are all that can be attempted
in a discourse like this;  enough to give some lit-
tle idea of what the  dental  profession has grown
out of, and what it has grown to; a few  hints to
make us  feel more  keenly its importance; a pic-
ture or two of old superstitions and fancies and
barbarisms to contrast with the enlightened knowl-
edge  of our  own time;  a brief mention  of some
of the leading modern improvements in the scien-
tific and practical departments relating to the teeth;
an explanation of the causes which have kept the
dental profession from  receiving  the recognition
it  has a rieht to claim ;  and  a vindication of its
title to the regard of the community, and  to a fair 
6         THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

representation of its teachings at the great seats
of learning.   I mention some of the points I shall
touch upon rather than discuss, not under  formal
headings,  and with strict adhesion to the order in
which I have mentioned them, but as  they appear
to present themselves most naturally.
   The greatest difficulty in handling  the subject
is  the  extent of its literature,  and  the  infinite
detail of ingenuity which has gone to the  bringing
about of the perfection of its mechanical processes.
The value of the teeth  to human beings is so pro-
digious, that, as soon as attention was fairly turned
to their  proper management and  the  methods
of repairing their losses, inventive talent precipi-
tated itself, so to speak, upon the new department
of human industry.   There  is  no  pearl in any
royal crown for which a young queen  would give
one  of her front incisors.   And those who know
what a perfect organ each one of the teeth is, as
shown  by the more  recent revelations of minute
anatomy, what pains Nature has taken with its
complex organization, will not wonder at the esti-
mate set upon it.
   The teeth,  in their relation to  the beauty of  the
human countenance, have figured in poetry from
the earliest times.  " Thy  teeth are like a flock of
sheep that are even shorn,  which came up from the
washing;  whereof every one bear twins, and none
is  barren among them," says the imaginative au- 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
thor of the " Song  of Songs."  Their  whiteness
has been compared to that of snow, of Parian mar-
ble,  and of  pearls, until  verse is tired  of the
images.  The ancient poets and satirists are full
of allusions to the beauty and deformity depend-
ing on the  conditions of the teeth.  The  ladies
who made it their business to please, on Bentham's
principle of procuring the  greatest happiness of
the greatest  number, had recourse to every kind
of artifice to disguise their  defects, and commend
their charms.  Here is  one  of these  tricks  as
given  by Athenseus, in a  passage  not cited  by
Duval in his large collection of classical quota-
tions relating to this subject.   I give a part of it
in English : —
  " They whose  teeth  are  elegant  force  them-
selves  to smile even against their inclination, so
that the  beauty of their mouths may be seen by
their visitors; but,  if their smile is  not so  pleas-
ant a sight, they hold a  sprig of myrtle in  their
mouths,  so  that  it  will  cover  their teeth  when
they open  their lips, on purpose or otherwise."
  As for the  unfortunates whose teeth were dis-
colored,  or  had  suffered some  of  the  common
changes  that age brings about, the satirists scoffed
at them in such coarse language, that their phrases
are quite unbearable to modern  ears.  Even  such
a personal remark as that of the graceful Catullus
would  be considered  inadmissible  in  our time: 
8         THE  CLAIMS  OF DENTISTRY.

" Your mouth is full of teeth half a yard long, and
your gums are like an old wagon-box."   The  first
circumstance — the seeming inordinate  length of
the teeth — is a well-known effect of age, which
produces a shrinking of the gums.  The French-
men talk of dents dechaussees, unshod teeth ; and I
remember  that Thackeray, in  one of his stories,
speaks of certain ladies, not very ytfung ones, as
" long  in  the tooth," among other by  no means
flattering peculiarities.
  We  have grown  more  civil than the Romans;
but we know the beauty of a fine set of teeth, and
the deformity of its opposite, as well as they did.
It  is true that  men can often conceal the imper-
fection of their dental arrangements by letting the
eaves  of  a heavy  mustache  overshadow  their
mouths.   But to women,  to  hide whose smile
would be  to take away  half the  sunshine of life,
and to whom Nature has kindly refused the growth
that  would deprive  us of it, there is no element
of her wondrous beauty which can take the place
of white, even, well-shaped teeth.   And  as beauty
is  not  a mere  plaything, but  a  great  force,  like
gravity or electricity, the art which keeps it, mends
it,  and, to some extent, makes it, is of correspond-
ing importance.
  But  we must add to this the consideration,  that
speech is so largely dependent on the  perfection
of the  teeth, that our language, we mio-ht almost 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
9
say,  loses  a  letter with  every tooth  that falls.
What can  be more painful to witness than the
efforts of a hapless  friend to bite his consonants
out of the alphabet when he is  reduced  to the
condition of the infant, whose boneless gums are
unfit for any task but the caressing pressure of
the maternal  mouthful!
  And then the humbler, but still necessary func-
tion of mastication, — how much depends on the
ease and perfection with  which this  is performed!
You can tell  the state of a village by going to the
mill.  If it has enough  to grind,  and grinds  it
well and cheaply, you will  find good  farms and
well-fed people: so, if you see a good square jaw,
filled with  good sound teeth, and moved by a set
of muscles that mean business, and  do  it, you will
find, in  all probability, that they nourish a sound
frame in man or woman.   I have never forgotten
the complaint of poor Walter Savage  Landor,—
a sadder one  than any of  the Preacher's, it seems
to me.  I  quote it from  memory.  " I have lost
my mind," he said; " that I  do not  care so much
about: but I have lost my teeth, and I cannot eat."
It has been my custom for many years, when lec-
turing upon this part of anatomy, to bring  forward
the skull  of  a  large turtle, in order that its jaws
might  be  compared  with those of the  human
being in very  advanced  years.   The  sharpened
edges of the alveolar border in the  old man show 
IO       THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
the retrograde process by which he returns to the
quasi-embryonic condition, reminding us of that
earlier period  when  he  passed through  the scale
of being, upward, to reach the supremacy of which
age is constantly trying to deprive him.
   It is no wonder; then, that the teeth have been
particular objects of attention  from  the earliest
period.   The  Egyptians, who  made specialties of
every thing, had professional   dentists ;  and it is
asserted  that  artificial  teeth  of ivory  or wood,
some of them  on gold plates, have been  found in
the jaws of mummies.   The  teeth of mummies
are said  also to have been found filled with gold.
I do -not find any distinct notice of a dental pro-
fession from the time of the Egyptians to that of
Galen.  You will permit me to quote, in the origi-
nal, a passage  which I have unearthed in one of
his treatises, because it makes  use of  an  adjective
which will  be  found in our  catalogues and diplo-
mas, where it was  admitted  after some discus-
sion : —
   " Omnes tamen istos communi nomine medicos
appellant, perinde  ut eos, puto, qui a quibusdam
membris,  quorum  praecipue curam gerunt, voci-
tantur: hos namque ocularios, auricularios,  den-
tarios (ita dicere liceat) medicos nominant."
   It is a long interval from Galen to the middle
of the seventeenth century; but I have not  found
any other traces  of a  special  dental profession 
          THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.        II

until  I came upon the following, which looks very
much as if it referred to such specialists.   In the
Diary of the Rev. John WTard, vicar of Stratford
on Avon from 1648 to  1679, — the book rendered
famous  by  a  reminiscence  of Shakspeare, for
which the poet would not have  thanked him, — is
the following : —
   " Uppon  a signe about Fleet Bridg this is writ-
ten,

   ' Here  lives Peter de la Roch and George Goslin, both
which, and no other,  are sworn  operators  to the King's
teeth.'"

   Whether these  operators had any other calling
than  this august office does not appear.  Early in
the next century, the practice of dentistry seems to
have  been in the hands of silversmiths and jewel-
lers.  I think many of us can recall the name of a
fellow-citizen, — originally, I think, a watchmaker
— who branched off, without any special training,
into  the  business of a dentist, and who acquired a
considerable name for  filling teeth with skill and
success,  taking time  enough  about  it,  and re-
ceiving very handsome pay for  his services.
   Dentistry as a profession may be safely said to
have come into existence during the present cen-
tury.  In this country, its growth has been of won-
derful rapidity.    One would have thought that
Cadmus had sown a new furrow full of teeth, and 
 12        THE  CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

that they had sprung up dentists.  In  1820, it has
been computed that there  were not more  than a
hundred dentists in the United States:  in 1858,
there were four thousand.   I presume they have
increased in as rapid a ratio since that time; and,
in the  mean while, works   on  dentistry, journals
devoted to  it,  institutions for  teaching it,  have
become so  numerous, that  it is recognized as one
of the  great callings of life.
  If we would know what we have gained by the
elevation of dentistry into an honorable  special
branch  of  medical practice, we  must  go  back
to  the  time when ignorance, superstition, and
bungling  awkwardness,  reigned over  the  whole
province of art, now so fully illuminated  by sci-
ence, and  in which  such   admirable  mechanical
skill has developed itself in every form to  relieve
suffering, to supply deficiencies, to add in all pos-
sible ways to comfort and  comeliness.
  It is simply amusing to  look.back two or three
centuries,  and see what men were capable of  be-
lieving.  You will find in  Ambroise Pare various
forms of words in use in his  time  to cure  the
toothache.   The notion that this pain was caused
by a worm, which  Shakspeare refers to, is  at least
as old  as Avicenna.  Strange significance was at-
tached to an anomaly which an old friend of mine
told me happened in his own person:  I mean  the
same fact that Richard the  Third boasts of, namely, 
          THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.        I 3

that he was born with teeth.  " A girl was born at
Picenum  with six  teeth," says  Polydore Virgil;
"and at that time the Turks began to capture our
towns far  and wide."   But nothing quite equals
the story  of the millers  little son, whose second
molar on the left-hand side of the lower jaw was a
golden one, —as good, they said, as if a goldsmith
had made it.  Some pretended  having  seen the
letters CSC legibly inscribed upon it.   I have
before me a  most exact statement of the facts of
the  case, authenticated by a number of eminently
respectable personages;  and I  find in   Haller's
" Bibliotheca Anatomica " various notices of  the
storm of controversy excited by the story of this
Silesian boy with  the  golden tooth.  "  What it
portends,"  says  Laurence Scholtzius,  " I do  not
hesitate to declare  is known to  God alone."   It
is to this  most famous  case that  Sir  Thomas
Browne refers, when he  says, speaking  of   the
pretended difference of posture in which drowned
men  and  women float,  " But hereof we  cease to
discourse, lest we undertake to' afford a reason of
the golden  tooth ;  that is, to invent or  assign  a
cause  when we remain unsatisfied or unassured
of the event." And in the margin, " Of the cause
whereof  much  dispute  was  made, and  at  last
proved an imposture."   All this was a good while
ago ;  but  I  am  myself old enough to remember
several curious  notions  about the  teeth, which 
 14        THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

had  a  considerable  currency,  and  came  near
enough to being  believed to be told pretty seri-
ously.   If one had a tooth extracted, it must be
burned, because, if a dog got it and swallowed it,
one would have a dog's tooth come in  its place.   I
recollect a story told  me  of a somewhat noted
public character, whose smile, or other attractions,
had  made  him dangerous  to  the  sex formerly
called ,'the weaker one, — a  personage too well
known to the scandal of his time, — who was said
to have had his teeth, or some of them, extracted,
and replaced by those of a living animalr— a calf
or a sheep.  This story was told seriously ; and the
hero of it I have  seen with my own eyes, when
age had disarmed  him of the fatal fascinations of
his  earlier days.   There  is  a  common  notion
enough, still prevalent, that some persons have a
complete set of double teeth, as they are called, —
a jaw full of  molars.   I  never saw  one,  and  I
doubt if anybody ever did ;  but the teeth  of In-
dians and sailors, ground down by the attrition of
hard grains or sea-biscuit, might be mistaken for
such a maleformation.
  It is only since the year  1835 that the anatomy
of the  teeth, out of which  necessarily arose new
views of their physiology and pathology, can be said
to have been fairly understood.  It is true that old
Leeuwenhoeck had described the " pipes," as he
called them, of the dentine so long-  ag-o as the 
          THE CLAIMS  OF DENTISTRY.       I 5

year 1678 ; but his discoveries were so much ahead
of his time, that they had to wait some generations,
like  the seven sleepers, before  they woke up, to
find themselves  confirmed.   An article in " The
British and Foreign Medical Review," for the year
1839, brought before  the profession in England
and America, in  a  connected  way, and  with illus-
trative figures, a series of discoveries which had
changed the whole  aspect of dental anatomy. We
owe all these discoveries, or rediscoveries, to the
invention of the achromatic microscope, which en-
ables any of us to show the student the beautiful
intricate structure of the teeth as plainly as he can
see the anatomy of the skeleton with the  naked eye.
You have all studied the exquisite tubular arrange-
ment of the dentine ; have speculated on the nature
of the contents of the  tubes, first demonstrated
by Owen in the elephant; have  examined  the
prisms  of enamel,  and  the stellate cells of  the
cementum ; you have seen the vascular systems of
the pulp, and around  the fang, and how they run
into each other;  the tooth is  for you a delicately
organized living structure, carrying on nutritive
functions through the greater portion of its sub-
stance, and capable, to a certain extent, of repairing
its  injuries.    To  those  who studied   Bell's  or
Meckel's Anatomv, who read the works  of Hunter
or Fox  on the teeth, all this is a revelation which
only those can fully appreciate who were born in
the benighted days of dental  heathenism. 
 16       THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

   While the scientific  basis  of dental art has
 made  these  great  advances in modern days, the
 practice of the art itself has undergone the most
 wonderful transformation.   The work  of  filling
 teeth has been carried to such perfection, that not
 only is decay arrested, and a tooth which seemed
 destined to  rapid destruction so repaired that  it
 will last a lifetime, but, where the greater portion
 of a tooth was gone, it has been built up, so that
 the miracle of the boy of Silesia is wrought every-
 day by mortal hands ;  and we see a golden tooth
 in a living mouth without  fearing  an invasion  of
 the Turks, or  a  war with   England.  I  suppose
 that the improvements in  this particular depart-
 ment of dentistry, the invention and perfecting  of
 mineral teeth, their insertion on  plates retained
 by atmospheric pressure, the substitution of the
 improved forceps for the clavis, and the applica-
 tion of anaesthesia  to extraction, would  be con-
 sidered  the  greatest  achievements of  modern
 dentistry.
   What a change since the time when teeth were
 allowed  to decay as if they were  not  worth the
 gold it took  to  fill them!   What a change from
 the time of those ghastly rateliers,  as the French
 call them, carved   in  ivory, and  supported by
 springs that  creaked with  every motion  of the
jaws, like the thorough-braces of an old-fashioned
stage-coach !   Could any thing be less invitino-  to 
           THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.       17

 social intercourse ?  Could any  thing be  more
 appalling to tender infancy than the sight of one
 of those dancing-sets of artificial teeth, looking as
 if they were  ready to jump from  their owners'
' mouths, and fasten  upon one, as they used to say
 a  turtle's head would do after it was cut off?  Mr.
 Greenwood  of  New- York, you  may remember,
 carved a set for the Father of his  Country; and
 one can hardly fail to see how the flattened and
 compressed lips were in a perpetual struggle with
 those loose-fitting arches and  rebellious spirals.
 Yet  this was considered a masterpiece of dental
 workmanship;  and  I have no doubt  that pilgrim-
 ages have  been made  to  Mount Vernon by artifi-
 cers  in that  line  of business, who left with a tear
 in one eye at the sight of Washington's  majestic
 countenance, and a  twinkle of satisfaction  in the
 other at the triumph achieved by  Mr. Greenwood.
   Contrast this state of things with the manufac-
 ture  of artificial  mineral teeth as carried on in
 this  country, where it has  been  brought to its
 greatest perfection.   More than  ten years ago,
 there were nine factories  engaged in their fabrica-
 tion,  and more than two million teeth were  made
 in a year.  To-day,  I suppose they must be  made
 and sold by the bushel, like the cereal grains; and,
 if the great factories required elevators to handle
 their products, it would hardly surprise us.   Com-
 pare  the delicately-tinted, exquisitely-shaped por-
          3 
 I 8        THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

 celain incisors with those frightful ivory palisades
 that used to play up and down like a portcullis in
 a manner to  terrify all beholders.  In  fact,  the
 perfection of artificial teeth is carried almost  too
 far.  They have come to be  for the inside  of  the
 head what the wig was for its outside in the clays
 of our ancestors.   It was so much more conven-
 ient to have a head of hair that  one could whisk
 on and off in a moment; one  that never grew
 gray;  one that was just the shade the owner fan-
 cied, that was  always  in curl, that could be laid
 aside in hot weather to let the  cool breeze play
 over the naked scalp (a luxury which Adam never
 knew in Paradise,  and coming  about as near to
 " sitting in one's bones " as is practicable while we
 are in the flesh), — all this was so much more con-
 venient and comfortable  than  the arrangement
 provided by  Nature, that  the wig reigned  undis-
 puted for generations,  and  will, not very improba-
 bly, return to bless mankind before our children's
 children are bald and gray.   So with the artificial
 teeth of this dental millennium in which it  is our
 good fortune to live. They are comely ; they never
 ache ;  they are contented with their situation, and
 keep their place, which is  more  than we  can say
 of most of our living  servants; they undergo  no
 changes in the  mouth ; they  admit of the  nicest
personal proprieties; they serve perfectly for articu-
lation ;  and though one can hardly crack a peach- 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.        19
stone with  them,  as some can  with  their native
molars, or  use  them  for biting off the  heads of
iron nails, as used to be told of Ethan Allen, they
can do good service in  the respectable and respon-
sible duties of mastication.  The consequence of
all this is, that people  are only too ready to  have
their natural teeth shelled from their gums  like so
many grains of  Indian-corn from  the cob, and a
complete mouthful of  artificial make  inserted in
their place.  You miss your friend for a little time :
he is in his chamber, with his jaws  tied up, perus-
ing " Zimmermann on Solitude " for a few days :
suffering from toothache is the figurative language
in which his condition is  announced.  When  he
returns to society, he has recovered his youth like
/Eson  in the hands of Medea; and his smile is a
glittering  welcome, a mineral benediction, which
it is a joy forever to have been blest with.  Think,
again, what that preliminary process of edentation
would  have been in  the days  when the rustic
patient complained that he  had to pay as much
as his  neighbor, who  had  been dragged  three
times round the  room before the tooth came out.
There never was a claw on bird or beast  that was
the cause of such  anguish of apprehension, such
howls  of  agony, as that diabolical  instrument,
looking like a  vulture's  talon, but  known  by
the name  of t/ic key.   It was a key indeed : it
may  have  opened  the door  of heaven to  the 
20
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
sufferer in due time ;  but, while the bolt was turn-
ing, the victim thought he was in that other place,
where the man must be who invented the  instru-
ment of torture.  Now a patient comes in ; takes
a few whiffs  of an  anaesthetic ; has  a  dozen or
more teeth submitted to the embrace  of the gen-
tlemanly forceps, which lift them from their sock.
ets as one takes out  the pegs  of a solitaire-board,
— say, rather, as a father lifts his first-born  infant,
— comes to ;  stares about him ; asks when they are
p-oino- to begin ; is told that it is all  over;  bursts
into  tears of hysteric gratitude; kisses the smiling
dentist; wants to hug all mankind, and make  the
human race happy at once ; sobers down presently,
ties  up his face, and  takes to retirement and Zim-
mermann for a season, as before mentioned.
   I  have seen something, as, probably, most of us
have, of the practical skill of dentists;  but, in
alluding to  some of the  more important  recent
advances of the dental profession,  I was unwilling
to trust my  own  fortunately  limited experience,
and  have  consulted my  friends,  Dr.  Moffatt of
this city, and Dr. McQuillen  of Philadelphia, the
late editor of the journal known as  " The  Dental
 Cosmos," both of whom have kindly favored me
 with their own independent  opinions  as  to  late
 improvements.
   The use  of the  mallet in filling teeth, every
 blow of wrhich instrument is a  fractional knock 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.        2 1
on  the  head to the patient equal to about one
hundredth of that which a  slayer of cattle gives
to a full-grown ox  to finish him, but which, being
taken in divided doses, allows the sufferer to escape
with life, — the use  of  the mallet, automatic  or
other, far  from agreeable as it  is, is  considered a
vast accession to the art of dentistry.   Every man
must  be anvil or sledge, says  Goethe; and it is
quite  plain that our friends the dentists have set-
tled it so  far as they and we are concerned.
  Nothing has excited my admiration more than
the wonderful  drills, moved by  the  foot, or any
other power which may be preferred, finding their
way into  every corner of the mouth with  a sinu-
ous grace of movement  such as  the serpent dis-
played for the fascination of our  unfortunate first
parent,  and making their way into the solid den-
tal substance with a rapidity from which the engi-
neers of the Hoosac Tunnel might borrow a most
significant lesson.
  The employment of sponge gold for certain pur-
poses, and the use of heat to develop the cohesive
properties of the metal, have enabled  the  dentist
to perform those remarkable feats of building  up
a tooth from its  ruins, to  which I  have  before
referred.
  The public seems hardly to appreciate the very
great  value of the cement fillings, — both the oxide
of zinc and  the gutta-percha, — either of which is 
2 2        THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

capable of preserving for long use  a tooth too
infirm to bear filling with gold.
  The  use of  sheet India-rubber to protect a
tooth from moisture while being filled is  another
most valuable innovation.
  I learn  that even exposed  pulps may be pro-
tected by artificial means, and thus a  tooth  saved
as a living organ from an almost hopeless condi-
tion.
  Important as are these mechanical  inventions,
the   growth  of  dental associations,  educational
institutions and journals, mark a still  more  gene-
ral  advance  of  the profession.  I have known
something of the teachers of the art, of their zeal,
their capacity, their disinterested desire  for the
elevation of their calling.   I  have for years  been
a frequent reader of " The Dental  Cosmos," and I
can bear testimony to the great intelligence with
which it has  been  edited.  I  have found  in  its
pages  much  information, of interest  and  value,
that I have never met with elsewhere; and I have
seen a great many medical journals with a broader
titlepage and  a vastly narrower table  of contents.
Yet this is but one  of  five dental journals pub-
lished in the  United States; and at least as many
are  published in other countries.  It  is from a
living  and wide-awake profession, then,  that the
new faculty is invited to  share with us the honor-
able task of teaching; and we cannot doubt that 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.       23
the community  will encourage, and  it  may be
hoped  in  due time  liberally endow,  the infant
offspring of Harvard University, now cutting its
first teeth  with every promise of health and vigor.
  The picture of old age drawn  in  Ecclesiastes
is wonderfully impressive, — all the more so in con-
sequence of the  obscurity of some of its images.
But we all know what  the  Preacher means when
he speaks  of the drawing-nigh of the  years when
we shall say there is no pleasure in them, and  of
the day when the  grinders shall  cease  because
they are few, and those that look out  of  the win-
dow shall be darkened.  There were no dentists in
those days to rejuvenate the old man  with a third
dentition.   There were no opticians to supply his
failing  vision with  the second  eyes  of  old age.
The aged  people seem to have been in a most
forlorn condition at a time  when the  men of to-
day not rarely have  a  good deal of vitality left,
and enjoy  life, and help to make others  enjoy it.
To us  who remember the late Josiah  Quincy and
Dr. James Jackson  long after  they  were eighty
years old, who knew something,  by report, of Lord
Lyndhurst and  Lord  Brougham  in their later
years, it seems strange to hear Barzillai say to King
David, " I  am this day fourscore  years old; and
can I discern between good and evil ? can thy serv-
ant taste what I eat or what I drink ? can I hear
the voice of singing  men and singing  women? " 
 24        THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

  But what would old age be  to  a great  number
of persons without the aid of  the dentist and the
optician? The worn-out laboring man, unused to
books, and with limited  capacity for social  inter-
course, may get along well enough, perhaps, with
his  pipe, and his  seat in  the  sunshine or by the
fireside.   Father Abraham may not have  felt the
need  of spectacles:  he went to bed early, no
doubt; there was no daily newspaper to read ; and
he  did not shave.  But  what would  become  of
the scholar,  or of persons of any cultivation  in
our days, who  at  fifty or sixty should  find  them-
selves  cut off from reading, and,  not  improbably,
rendered unpresentable, or at  least miserably un-
comfortable, in  society, in consequence of imper-
fect articulation ?   The care of the eyes is  there-
fore  recognized as one of the  most  important
specialties in medicine, and the study  of ophthal-
mology has  engaged  some of the most  distin-
guished professional' talent in  this country as well
as in Europe.  The province  of dentistry is  only
second  in importance  to the other  domain  of
medical science and art, and rivals it in the  intel-
ligence and activity of those who teach and prac-
tise it.   In one respect,  it is of greater  public
interest than the  other  branch:  most children's
and young persons'  teeth  require positive  atten-
tion ; whereas their eyes, in the great  majority of
cases, take tolerable care of themselves.  I  think 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.       25
  there are twelve times  as  many dentists  in  this
  city as there are oculists.  If every one had twenty
  eyes in  the early part  of his life, and thirty-two
  when full grown, the numbers of oculists and den-
  tists might  be more nearly  equal.
    The branch of the medical profession to which
  this  graduating  class  has  devoted  itself  has
  not  taken  its proper position until within a com-
  paratively  recent period;  but,  in this respect, it
  has been no worse off  than other branches in for-
  mer times,  or than the  entire profession at some
  periods of  its history.   The Romans contrived to
  live'without doctors for some five hundred years:
  when they got them at last, they were slaves, —
  Greeks, for the most part, — and kept as append-
•  ages of a great man's  establishment, as he kept
  a cook or other servant.
    The worthy vicarof Stratford on Avon, to whom
  I have before referred,  gives us some very curious
  information as  to the state  of the medical profes-
  sion in England in his own time and before it.
  A few paragraphs are worth quoting: —
    " The Saxons had their blood-letters, but under
  the Normans  physick  begunne in England;  300
  years agoe it  was not a  distinct profession by
  itself, but  practisd by men in  orders,  witness
  Nicholas de Ternham, the chief English physitian
  and  Bishop of Durham ;   Hugh  of Evesham, a
  physician  and  cardinal ; Grysant physician  and
           4 
2 6       THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

pope ;  John  Chambers  Doctor of  Physick, was
the first  Bishop of Peterborough ;  Paul Bush, a
bachelor of divinitie  in  Oxford was well read  in
physick  as  well  as  divinitie, hee  was the first
Bishop of Bristol."   " In King Richard the Sec-
ond's time physitians and divines were not dis-
tinct  professions;  for one Tydeman,  Bishop  of
Landaph and Worcester, was physician to King
Richard the Second." And again : " Edmund, Earl
of Derby, who dyed in Queen Elizabeth's days,
was famous  for chirurgerie, bonesetting and hos-
pitalitie."
   We may be sure that  all this meant a very low
condition of medical knowledge.  And this opinion
is confirmed  by what is  found in the same Diary
a few pages  farther on.
   " Dr. Sydenham is writing  a book which will
bring physicians about his ears, to decrie the use-
fulness of natural  philosophic, and to  maintaine
the  necessitie of  knowledg in anatomie in subor-
dination to physick.
   " Physick, says Sydenham, is not to  be  learned
by going to Universities, but hee is for taking ap-
prentices ; and says one had as good send a man
to  Oxford  to learn shoemaking  as  practising
physick."
   There were other heretics besides Sydenham ;
for, as Mr. Ward tells us, " Some have said that
physick is no art  at all,  nor worthy of the name of 
          THE  CLAIMS  OF DENTISTRY.       2J

a liberall  science, as  Peter And.  Canonherius, a
practitioner at Rome, endeavored to prove  by six-
teen arguments."
  The vicar  himself practised physic, as wrell as
preached, like others of  his clerical brethren.  We
find from him that quarrelling and quackery were
quite  as common then  as  now.   The university-
teaching which Sydenham spoke of with such
contempt  was, of course, the book-learning of the
time,  and  not  the practical  instruction of later
daws.   Much  as we  have gained, the following
words from the  Diary  are not  so far from truth
to-day as they might be: —
  " There are several sorts  of physitians, said one ;
first,  those  that canne  talk  but  doe nothing;
secondly, some that can doe  but not talk; third,
some that can both doe and  talk; fourthly, some
that can  neither doe  nor talk, and these get most
monie.
  " Some doctors have  a noble out of a pound of
their apothecaries ; as Dr. Wright; many (have) a
crowne, as an apothecarie in London told me."
  In  this  last  sentence, and  in the fact that the
English  " general  practitioner,"  so  called, has
charged, not  for his advice, but  for his pills and
potions, lies  the secret of that  disgraceful drug-
ging  system which  has  racked  the  entrails  of
Englishmen from generation to generation ; which
we  inherited  from the mother-country; and which 
28        THE  CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

is fast giving way to those more rational views, in
which healthy nutrition, and the skilful alleviation
of symptoms, are taking the place of the exhaust-
ing  depletions  and  specific poisons  supposed
necessary to the cure of disease.   In spite of this
corrupting influence, English medical science and
art  asserted themselves successively in men like
Linacre, Harvey, Sydenham,  and Mead, and the
practitioners who confined themselves to medical,
in distinction from surgical, practice, so as to de-
serve the  eulogies of such personages  as Dryden
and  Pope, of Johnson and  Parr and Blackstone.
  But   chirurgery — medical  hand-work — fared
very differently.  No longer ago than when Presi-
dent Holyoke, whose son, the venerable physician,
some of  us  well  remember,  entered  upon the
duties  of his office, and for years after that time,
the   London  Company of Barber-Surgeons  were
holding their meetings at  their hall in Monkwell
Street;  and it was not till very near the middle of
the  last century, that the surgeons  were incorpo-
rated as a separate body.   It was about the same
time, that is, during the reign of George the Sec-
ond, that the question was discussed in open court,
before the chief justice of England, whether a sur-
geon was an "inferior tradesman," within the mean-
ing of a certain statute of William and  Mary.  But
we must remember in what contempt other of the
most useful  occupations were held so long as 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
29
society was enslaved  by  its  feudal  traditions.
Traffic and agriculture were scorned  by the de-
scendants of the Norman robbers, until they were
starved into better views and more civil language
than they had inherited.

  " The toiling tradesman and the sweating clown
   Would have his wench fair, though his bread be brown,"

says  Michael Drayton  in  the poetical epistle of
Edward Fourth  to  Mistress Jane  Shore.  And
now the great nobles of Britain are very glad to
turn an honest penny by traffic, instead of taking
it by force from their neighbors.

        " Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt;
         The Duke of Norfolk  deals in malt;
             The Douglas, in red herrings."

One son  of the  Duke  of Argyle  marries*  the
queen's daughter; and  the other comes  to New
York, and goes  into a trading-establishment.  In
this country, more especially, the useful arts have
no right to complain of their want  of fair recog-
nition.  If  we  do  not  absolutely forbid idleness,
our rich men and women who live for amusement
only are very apt to find themselves  uncomfortable
until  they  can get out  of  a country where there
are bounties granted to fishermen, and  nothing
but taxes for gentlemen of leisure. 
3Q
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
   The  movement  of civilization  is  a perpetual
struggle between the arts  of destruction on the
one hand, and those  of construction  and conser-
vation on the other.  AH that  the earth teaches
us of  man  in  the  earlier periods  of his  ascer-
tained existence  shows him to  have been a fight-
ing cannibal, who cracked  the  bones of his de-
ceased  relatives,  to get  their  marrow,  with the
same pious satisfaction  his descendant  shows in
breaking the seal of a  last will  and testament.
The  best man among savages is the  one who
swings the heaviest club, and has eaten the largest
number of his enemies, or who carries most scalps
at his girdle.  It is somewhat better in  our day ;
but the ideal state of society is not yet made quite
real.  The fighting  man is still  the one most hon-
ored by the  world.   Even the phraseology of our
religion, which  points to  the Lord of hosts and
the Captain  of our salvation, shows us how deep-
ly-rooted is that feeling of the supreme excellence
of a military title,  which we inherit from the man-
eating troglodytes.
  But  the   modern movement,  in   its  truest
form,  insists  that mutual  destruction is  not the
chief  end of man.   Even  the  fighting  Romans
had got  so  far as to decree  that the oak-leaf gar-
land,  ob  cives servatos, should  take  precedence
of the conqueror's laurel.  And Christian civiliza- 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.       31
tion is ready to acknowledge, to-day, that the only
really noble warfare is that against the evils which
beset the race.   Men must  be slain for a  long
time, always  perhaps, in  the  greater conflicts of
right and  wrong ;  but humanity confesses, that,
apart from  the  righteous  end to be attained, a
bloody victory is only a less calamity than a bloody
defeat.
  The arts of peace are gaining in consideration
over the  arts of war, slowly, we  must own, but
steadily.  And, if any one of  these  arts  of  peace
should have appeared entitled to the highest con-
sideration of a civilized  people, it would seem to
be  that which  professes to relieve suffering, and
prolong life.   So it would have been if medicine
could have done all that was asked of  it.   The
physician would have  been held  only second to
the Deity, had he not too frequently disappointed
the expectations of those who were  ready to wor-
ship him.   This always was  and  always will be.
The children of Israel complained that they had
to make bricks without straw  : the physician  has
to make bricks without  clay.  Many of  the pa-
tients that come to him  had never any physio-
logical  right to live at all.  They are not much
nearer to  the  true  human   pattern  than   that
same starved Justice  Shallow,  who was like a
man made after supper of a cheese-paring;  when 
32        THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.

he  was naked, for all the  world  like a  forked
radish.  And  they come complaining that they
are not in  condition  to run  ten miles within
the hour, or fight the champion  of the  heavy
weights for the prize belt.  It has  taken  a dozen
sickly  generations to breed  them down to con-
stitutional  invalidism,  and  they want a  pill  or
a powder to set them  all right  again.  Or they
come to the physician at fifty or sixty, wrecks of
fine constitutions, got up  originally without regard
to expense, but burned out with strong drink, and
browned to the  marrow with  narcotics and  ni-
cotics, and want back the  virginity of their sodden
and corrugated tissues.   Or, it may be, some des-
perate  and violent malady has stabbed them to the
death ; and, because no one has seen a hand with a
poniard in it,  the patients or their friends think
that some  drop  or  potion will undo the mortal
effect of the invisible dagger-stroke.
  These inevitable disappointments have kept the
medical profession from receiving  that degree of
confidence  and of honor  to which its noble  func-
tion seemed to entitle it.  It does its best; but
that is not enough for the eager demand of men
for health, and length of  days.  Hence the  great
number of  pretenders and  pretentious  systems
which profess to be able to meet this want.   Men,
and, still more, women, wish to be  deceived; and 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.        33
it becomes a lucrative  trade to promise cures, as
it  was to promise  gold in the  days of  the  al-
chemists.
" Spondent quas non exhibent divitias, pauperes alchimistae."

   In spite of all  the obstacles which meet those
who give their lives to the pursuit  of knowledge,
without regard to the prejudices it disturbs, sci-
ence was never honored as it is in our time ; and
the science  of life was never studied  as at the
present day, — never with such  an apparatus  of
research, never with such concentration of talent
on special investigations, never with such hope of
resolving the most difficult problems within the
reach of human faculties.  Considered  merely as
a  study,  medicine  is  a great  and profoundly
interesting branch of science;  but  having regard
to the  interests  it  deals  with, — life and death,
well-being and  misery,  the conditions  of mind
and  body,  the   happiness or  wretchedness  of
whole  communities, — we can  hardly  wonder,
that, in early ages, a divine origin was assigned to
it, and that  he who is called the  Lord  of hosts
is  also spoken of by the nobler title of the Healer
of the land and of  the people.
   Your  profession,  young gentlemen,  is now an
accepted province  of this great and  beneficent
calling.  It has shared the effects of that onward
           5 
34        THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
movement which  has  asserted for the  arts  of
peace the  dignified  position to which they are
entitled.   You  are bound, in your turn, to reflect
honor on  the institution which has invested you
with authority to go forth as its representatives  in
the domain of your special duties.  The diploma
you have  received is a certificate of your fitness
for these duties; but it implies a promise that you
will try to do credit to those who stand sponsors
for you as you are christened with  your new title.
Harvard  University is  doing  all it can do  to
recognize  the value  of your profession  to the
community; and  it does  this at the time when
it is making the  most strenuous efforts to place
medical education on a  basis worthy of a branch
of knowledge so  complex, so vast, so all  impor-
tant to mankind.  That open volume  with Veri-
tas inscribed  upon it  should be, and it is, carried
at the figure-head  of the argosy of our  Amer-
ican intellectual progress.   Our university always
was, and must  be, a leader in educational move-
ments.  She  is waiting for those to follow  that
dare, to pass her that can; and,  if any drop astern,
she must wave  them a courteous salute, and leave
them.
   And now, gentlemen, we bid you God-speed  as
you go from these halls  to  exercise the talents
which  have  been here trained, and  apply the 
THE CLAIMS OF DENTISTRY.
35
knowledge which has been here imparted to  you.
May you find the public ready to appreciate and
reward your skill;  and so  acquit yourselves, that
the ear which hears you shall bless you; and the
eye that  sees you bear witness to you; that the
smiles of innumerable friends may reveal to you
the perfection  of your own handiwork; and  your
praise be in all  the  mouths of a grateful  com-
munity! 
 
X
^
The Claims of Dentistry,

            BY
    OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M.D. 
 
HARVARD   UNIVERSITY.
DENTAL  DEPARTMENT.
         BOSTON,  MASS.
                              FACULTY.
                CHARLES WILLIAM  ELIOT, LL.D.,
                               PRESIDENT.
   Oliver  W. Holmes, M.D., Professor of Anatomy.
   Henry  J. Bigelow, M.D., Professor of Surgery and Clinical Surgery.
   Thomas B. Hitchcock, M.D., D.M.D., Professor of Dental  Pathology
      and Therapeutics.
   George T. Moffatt, M.D.,  D.M.D.,  Professor of Operative Dentistry.
   Luther D. Shepard, D.D.S., Adjunct Professor of Operative Dentistry.
   Thomas H. Chandler, A.M., Professor of Mechanical Dentistry.
j   Nathaniel W. Hawes, Assistant Professor of Operative Dentistry.
   Edward S. Wood, M.D., Assistant Professor of Chemistry.
   Henry  P. Bowditch, M.D.,  Assistant Professor of Physiology.
!   Edward A. Bogue, M.D., University  Lecturer on Dental Pathology and
      Therapeutics.
I   Ira A. Salmon, D.D.S., University Lecturer on  Operative Dentistry.
   Samuel  F. Ham, D.M.D., Demonstrator of Mechanical Dentistry.
   Charles B. Porter,  M.D., Demonstrator of Practical Anatomy.
   Charles Wilson, D.M.D., Demonstrator in ChaFge.

      This  School offers to its students unusual facilities for instruction in
   every department pertaining to the Dental Specialty.  Instruction is given
   by lectures, recitations, and clinics; and, under the direction of demonstra-
   tors, patients are assigned to the students, who thus have an opportunity
   for operating at the chair, and becoming£uniliar,  by actual practice, with
   all operations demanded of the dental practitioner.
     The Regular Session will begin  On  the last Thursday in September,
   and continue nineteen weeks.
     The Summer Course of Study and Practical Exercises is designed as
I   an equivalent, entirely or in part, to pupilage with private preceptors.  It
j   commences upon the close  of the Winter Session, and continues till the
   26th of June.
     The Demonstrator  is present in the Infirmary and Laboratory daily
   throughout the year.
     For further information, address
                   THOS.  B.  HITCHCOCK,  M.D., D.M.D., Dean,
                                     222 Tremont Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 
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