ADDRESS 
DELIVERED BEFORE TIIE 
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DENTAL SCIENCE, 
AT THEIR 
SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING, 
HELD I IN BOSTON, SEPTEMBER 28, 1874, 
By Dr. w. w. Allport, 
OF CHICAGO. 
PUBLISHED 33 IT THE ACADEM Y. 
BOSTON: 
JAS. HARRIS & CO., PRINTERS, No. 19 SPRING LANE. 
1 874. ADDRESS. 
Mr. President and Fellows of the American Academy of 
Dental Science: — 
If N an annual address, on an occasion like this, it would 
f seem that remarks bearing upon the interests of our 
profession at large, rather than upon any particular ques- 
tion of practice or science, would be appropriate. 
The oft-recurring meetings of members of our profession, 
in different parts of our own country, as well as in Europe, 
at which papers are presented, evincing close observation 
and careful study upon modes of practice in the different 
departments of dental science; the multiplication of our 
text-books, and the well-filled pages of our periodical lit- 
erature ; our dental colleges, with many of their chairs 
filled with teachers qualified to instruct in medical colleges, 
as well as the high professional and scientific character 
maintained by many private practitioners, are, I think, suf- 
ficient evidence that there is not only an earnest desire, but 
a determination on the part of the better members of our 
profession for advancement and a correct application of 
dental science. 
That rapid and substantial progress has been made in 
this direction within the last thirty or forty years, has been 2 
fully demonstrated in the experience of some of the older 
members of this Academy, as well as by those of like age 
and experience throughout our country. 
But, because so much has been accomplished within this 
time, or during the present century, let us not be boast- 
ful ; for, when we consider the changes and improvements 
that have been made in the science and practice of medi- 
cine, both general and special, in husbandry, in the arts, 
and in the sciences in general, there is not a little reason 
to question whether we, in our particular calling, have 
more than kept pace with the progress and developments 
in the other fields of science and labor around us. 
Dentistry, as a special art or department of science, is, 
as it is often said, mainly, at least, of modern origin. It 
is an outgrowth, partly, of an increased ratio of disease 
in the teeth, though not so much, probably, as it is of a 
new demand of the advanced civilization and culture of 
the age. At an early day,—far back in the past,—when 
education and refinement were less general, teeth, un- 
doubtedly, suffered decay and gave trouble; but less 
being known of the causes of 'disease, and less of correct 
treatment, and less attention being paid to personal ap- 
pearance, much less importance was attached to the teeth 
than at the present time. But as civilization advanced, 
and culture and refinement increased, health rose in esti- 
mation, cleanliness and personal appearance received more 
attention, and, as a consequence; defective and unsightly 
teeth became objects of greater concern; and dentistry, 
at first rude, came up, and has grown to its present mag- 3 
nitude and perfection to meet this new demand of the 
times, just as the printing press, the telegraph, and steam 
locomotion were first brought into existence with all their 
imperfections, and have, by ingenuity and skill, from time 
to time been improved to meet the demand created by the 
growth of business and desire for progress and informa- 
tion, incident to the increase of population in our country 
and the spread of the civilization of the century. 
When, therefore, we are persuaded to think that the 
improvements in dentistry have been greater, or that they 
have been made more rapidly than has been the general 
progress of the age, it will be well to remember that teeth 
were filled when the printing press was but in its infancy, 
and that steamboats and railroads and telegraphs came 
into use long after artificial teeth were worn by George 
Washington, the first president of this, then experimental, 
Republic. Then, days and nights of most uncomfortable 
and weary travel were consumed in an overland journey 
from New York to Boston. Now, we sup and attend even- 
ing amusements in New York; then in flying palaces of 
rare woods and costly upholstery we retire to beds of 
luxury, and in the morning, with carefully-made toilets, 
and with a resume of the news of the world, as a relish, 
we breakfast in Boston. Then, to have transported by 
land of freight that is now carried from Bos- 
ton to New York in a single train of cars, in a few hours, 
would have upset the labor and taxed the resources of all 
New England for months. Then, to have journeyed from 
Boston to where the city of Detroit now stands, woidd 4 
have been to bid farewell to friends and to place one’s self 
beyond religions instruction or the watchful attentions of 
New England sheriffs. To-day, Chicago and even the 
Rocky Mountains are but convenient places for replenish- 
ing the lunch-baskets or larders of the thousands who, 
every year, over mountains, through valleys, and beside 
rivers, in Pullman’s winged hotels, go rushing across a 
continent, composedly viewing prairie and lake, forest, 
fretting brooks, sierra and canon, the silvered course of 
great rivers, and taking in now and then, a glimpse of 
a herd of wild buffalo or camp and dance of wild aborigi- 
nes. Hamlets and cities, the growth of a few months, 
are left behind in rapid succession, as on and on they 
rush to or from the golden State, the Atlantic or the 
Pacific coast. 
Could the wisest statesman who lived at the commence- 
ment of the present century be set down to-day in that 
great city of the West, once burned and twice built with- 
in the last forty years, and witness the passengers and 
freight passing east and west over the great trunk roads 
centering there, he would surely think that this was not 
the world in which he once lived, and that the inhabitants 
of this strange land were changing ends with the conti- 
nent, so altered and improved have all things become, so 
different the bulk and modes of travel and business. 
Take whatever example we please, —be it in agriculture, 
the arts or sciences, education, civil or religious freedom, 
the arts of war or those for promoting intercourse and 
preserving peace and thrift, — the progress of the last 5 
seventy-five years has been greater than that of centuries 
before. 
And only abreast with the advance of the age have 
marched the improvements in the'science and practice of 
dentistry, the surgical or operative department of which, 
when rightly understood and practiced, has become a 
legitimate branch of medicine, requiring the same general 
knowledge of medical science as does the practice of aural, 
or general surgery, or ophthalmology. 
The same general laws of health and disease pervade 
alike the most vital and most remote and unimportant 
organs of the human body. To comprehend the laws that 
govern either the physiological or pathological condition 
of any particular organ or member of the body, how to 
preserve health, or intelligently treat any particular dis- 
ease,— be it either general or special,—requires such a 
broad and special knowledge of the laws of health and 
the nature and treatment of disease, as would qualify the 
special practitioner to diagnose and acceptably treat the 
ordinary forms of disease met with by the family physi- 
cian. Special knowledge of any particular form of dis- 
ease, and unusual skill in its treatment requires a gen- 
eral knowledge of the laws of formation, of growth, of 
the nature and results of different diseases, and of the 
treatment compatible with nature,—that is best calculated 
to restore diseased parts to healthy action and conditions. 
Treatment upon the human organism, either general or 
special, resting upon any other foundation than this is 
simply empirical. 6 
We have heard much these many years about dentistry 
being a specialty in medicine, and about its claim to be so 
accredited by medical men ; but if these views are correct, 
to what extent should dentistry, as it is generally prac- 
ticed at the present day, be so regarded? And to what 
extent should dentists, as a class, rank with surgeons, 
ophthalmologists, or aurists, as legitimate specialists in 
medical practice ? 
In inquiring into this question, it will be proper to allude 
briefly to the past history and the present condition and 
needs of the profession. 
While history informs us, that, as early as the days of 
Herodotus, dentistry was practised, it is safe to say, that, 
until a comparatively recent date, dental work of any 
kind was exceedingly rare, and the business was not fol- 
lowed as a distinct calling. The little that was done was 
confined mainly to the carving and setting of artificial 
teeth from wood, bone, and ivory, possessing but little 
artistic taste or use. I make no new statement when I 
say that up to about the beginning of the present cen- 
tury, teeth were extracted by barbers and surgeons, and 
that artificial teeth were carved and set by jewellers and 
silversmiths only. Although teeth were then occasion- 
ally filled, the construction of a set of artificial teeth was 
regarded as the neplus ultra of dental skill. At the same 
time this was looked upon simply as evidence of that 
peculiar mechanical ingenuity which enabled the artisan to 
turn liis hand to an odd job outside of the regular routine 
of his trade. Dentistry was then merely mechanical, — 7 
comparatively nothing being known either of dental his- 
tology, physiology, pathology, or therapeutics. 
Experience having demonstrated that fillings, though 
imperfect, would arrest decay in teeth, the demand for 
these operations increased: but up to this time they 
seemed to be empirical, the science of their beneficial 
effects not being understood. But as the period of the 
higher mission of dentistry—the saving of natural teeth 
— approached, Hunter, Blake, Fox, and other medical 
men began to study more closely their structure, their 
physiological and pathological conditions, and their rela- 
tions to the general system. Then followed the therapeu- 
tics of filling, and the science becoming better understood, 
a demand for better and more frequent operations upon 
the natural teeth arose ; and for the purpose of making 
artificial teeth and the treatment of natural ones, a co- 
partnership between medical science and a mechanical art 
was entered into and conducted under the firm name of 
“ Dentistry.” 
Under this new condition of things, dentistry began to 
have a literature, and its practice was espoused by men of 
higher culture, to whom it offered a field for the exercise 
of more varied talents as well as one of greater usefulness. 
In a few years such men as Greenwood, Hudson, Hayden, 
Parmly, Flagg, Harris, Townsend, Clute, Wescott, and 
Badger were found engaged in practice. The science and 
practice of dentistry, in its various departments, were 
pushed forward with great rapidity, and schools were 
formed, in which was given such medical and mechanical 8 
instruction as was thought necessary to qualify the student 
for practice in accordance with the standard sought to be 
established by such men as I have named, and with a view 
to making it a specialty in medicine. 
Dentistry, thus given over to a special class of practi- 
tioners, has conquered its way, by its inherent importance 
to the welfare of man, up to the high position,—taking 
its ablest representatives for the criterion, — it now occu- 
pies ; and in this growth, it has approached nearer and 
nearer to its normal status and true mission, — an 
integral part of the science and art of medicine. 
In bringing about this result, whereby our practice has 
been settled upon a more scientific and practical basis, and 
a wider range and better class of operations brought into 
vogue, our dental colleges have been greatly instrumental. 
The complaint, however, is frequently made, and not alto- 
gether without grounds, that the standard actual for gradua- 
tion in these colleges is much below their standard as 
formulated; and that diplomas have, in many instances, 
been conferred upon persons unworthy to receive them. 
Still I feel that it would be unjust to say that the actual 
standard has not been fully up to the demand, either of the 
profession or the public. In fact, I believe our schools 
have been more anxious to graduate first-class practition- 
ers than a large majority of the public have been willing 
to encourage and pay for first-class skill. 
I am aware that it is said the demand of the age is for 
better dentists and better dentistry. I do not deny that 9 
there is need of a better class of dentists ; but at the 
same time, I believe that the average skill of the gradu- 
ates of our colleges is really up to the demand of the gen- 
eral public. Let it not be inferred by these remarks, 
that I wish or intend to sanction or apologize for the short- 
comings of our colleges in graduating those whom they 
know to be unfitted for practice, and unworthy of the 
honor conferred upon them. I merely state what I regard 
to be a fact; they supply, not the need, but the actual 
demand of the public in the productions which they send 
forth. The principle is not unlike the inexorable laws of 
supply and demand in trade. The people usually get what 
they appreciate and demand, whether it be in commerce, 
manufacture, education, or professional services. Let 
those, therefore, who desire to see our schools more exact- 
ing as to the qualifications of their graduates, see to it 
that, not only by a correct example in practice on their 
own part, but also, by a systematic and correct course of 
popular dental instruction in public prints, journals, and 
otherwise, the people are taught the importance of saving 
their natural teeth, and the difference between correct 
practice and quackery. Then, too, it will be well for 
some of those who find so much fault with our dental 
colleges, to take care that there be such an elimination of 
students, that those only who have a sufficient amount of 
brains and other requisite qualifications to make good 
practitioners be encouraged to enter the practice, and that 
such private instruction be imparted to them as shall 
qualify them to receive the greatest benefit from a high 10 
grade of teaching in our colleges, or else cease their fault- 
finding. 
I do not wish to exonerate our schools from the just 
blame that should be attached to them; but let it be re- 
membered that the sin of omission on the part of the pro- 
fession is quite as great the sin of commission on the 
part of our colleges. “Let him that is without sin cast 
the first stone.” 
While no one can question that amongst the educated 
and better classes of people, there is an increasing de- 
mand for higher skill in saving the natural teeth, no care- 
ful observer can have failed to notice the fact, that, within 
the last fifteen years, there has been an increasing demand 
for cheap sets of artificial teeth. The result of this is, 
that the better class of men entering the profession are 
devoting their time, almost exclusively, to operative den- 
tistry, in the service of patients who really appreciate skill ; 
while the inferior men are turning their attention to low- 
priced mechanical dentistry, and to inferior operations in 
tilling teeth for such people as neither appreciate nor are 
willing to pay for saving operations on the natural teeth. 
That mechanical dentistry should have very largely 
fallen into the hands of this inferior class of practitioners 
will hardly be wondered at by those who have watched 
the history of that branch of the practice. Up to about 
twenty years ago, the mechanical department of the prac- 
tice required a practical knowledge of selecting and com- 
pounding the materials out of which the teeth were made ; 
the hand and the eye of an artist were requisite to give 11 
them form and color; the management of heat in baking 
them; a knowledge of the nature of the precious metals 
and skill in working them; and a high order of mechan- 
ical talents in applying intricate mechanical laws in fitting 
and rendering useful the different forms of plates, together 
with mechanical and artistic skill in so adjusting the substi- 
tutes as to subserve the purposes for which they were 
intended. Since then, the manufacture of artificial teeth 
has become a distinct business, and they are now simply 
articles of commerce, bought by the piece, set, or thou- 
sand ; and to such perfection has this branch of manufac- 
tures been carried, that few dentists now think of making 
the teeth they use. Plates of precious metal, requir- 
ing mechanical skill of a high order to manipulate, 
have, in a large majority of cases, been substituted by 
plates cast from baser metals, or by rubber vulcanized in 
moulds, these requiring neither a high degree of judg- 
ment nor mechanical skill to accomplish results tolerably 
well, limited by the properties of the material used. 
As a consequence, therefore, of these conditions, the 
surgical branch of dentistry, which, when practised by 
competent men, allies it to medical science, has been con- 
stantly on the advance ; wdiile that which is devoted to the 
setting of artificial teeth has, in the last few years, been 
steadily retrograding and becoming more and more a 
trade. And so simple are the modes of attaining tolera- 
ble mechanical results with the methods now usually 
employed in this department, that a high order of appro- 
priate talent is, at the present time, seldom found devot- 12 
ing much time to it. By this I would not he understood 
as saying that this latter department does not need 
improving; for when viewed as an art, he who has 
but moderate ideas of symmetry or harmony of expres- 
sion and color is constantly pained by the lack of that 
artistic selection and arrangement of artificial teeth, which 
serves to restore to the face the shape and expression left 
upon it by the Creator, the absence of which in artificial 
dentures stamps him who should be an artist, an artisan 
— a mere mechanic — a libeller of the soul — a deformer 
of the human face divine. 
At the present time there are about twelve thousand 
practising dentists in the United States, about two thou- 
sand of whom are regular or honorary graduates of either 
dental or medical schools. To offset the unworthy gradu- 
ates by those practitioners not graduates who, by study 
and exertion have earned a deserved reputation and posi- 
tion in practice, would, I think, form a fair estimate of 
the really competent practitioners of scientific dentistry 
in the United States at the present day, — making the 
number of the really qualified about one-sixth of the entire 
number. Assuming, therefore, that the one-sixth, as are 
the members of your Academy, sufficiently advanced in 
the knowledge of medical science to entitle them to the 
right to be regarded as special practitioners of medicine, 
it can hardly be expected that dentistry, as a profession, 
when taken as a whole, would or ought to be so regarded 
by medical men. 
This claim, while being justly made by some, and 13 
freely acknowledged as to a portion of dental practitioners, 
individually, lias, not without cause, I think, been denied 
to the profession at large. The tastes, habits, and 
acquirements of the two classes of dental practitioners 
are as divergent as are the characters of true science and 
mechanism; the practice of the one being established 
upon a medical basis, while the other relates only to a 
mechanical art. The practice of either branch, it is true, 
involves a limited knowledge of the other; but it is not 
necessary either for the surgical practitioner to be a prac- 
tical mechanic, or the mechanician upon artificial work to 
understand the rationale of medical treatment, or to be an 
operator. In fact, the practice of both by the same indi- 
vidual prevents the highest development of either, as 
would the time spent in the manufacture of artificial legs 
by the surgeon, or the compounding, baking, and coloring 
of artificial eyes by the ophthalmologist, serve but to 
retard the higher development of their specialties ; or an 
attempt by the maker of limbs, eyes, or optical instru- 
ments to practice general surgery or the treatment of the 
eye, but degrade his own proper art. 
As I have before stated, the yoking together of the two 
callings seemed to be a necessity of the condition of the 
practice, at the time they were joined, and has resulted 
in great good. But the development of the practice has 
now brought us to a point where it is clear a new depar- 
ture should be taken, the co-partnership dissolved, and 
each department followed as a distinct and separate calling. 
Neither in private offices nor in our colleges should the two 14 
be taught as one, nor should the term “ dentist” be retained 
in our nomenclature. 
The true mission of medical science is to preserve or 
restore health and save life and limb, not to make or have 
to do with the making of artificial substitutes anv further 
than as they shall be made directly useful in subserving 
these purposes. Wig-making and the manufacture of 
artificial limbs and eyes are useful and respectable call- 
ings, and when properly pursued, require a good degree 
not only of mechanical skill, but also of artistic taste ; and 
as well, almost, might the making of these be taught in 
the medical college as the making of sets of artificial teeth 
form part of the curriculum in a medical specialty. The 
long association of operative with mechanical dentistry 
will make it somewhat more difficult, at first, to discon- 
nect them in the minds of the public, than in practice, 
as separate callings; but no professional act would be 
so directly' instrumental in accomplishing this result as 
to drop mechanical dentistry from the curriculum of our 
colleges, and save the time usually devoted to the teach- 
ing and practical work in the manufacturing and mounting 
of artificial teeth, and to other laboratory work, and em- 
ploy it in giving broader and more comprehensive instruc- 
tion in the science of medicine in these schools, or else, to 
incorporate them with the regular colleges of medicine by 
the establishment of appropriate chairs and infirmaries for 
clinical teaching. 
Let dental mechanics be otherwise taught as a high 
mechanical art, and the calling fixed in the mind of the 15 
public as such, and, in a few years, a patient would as 
soon go to the maker of artificial legs for advice or treat- 
ment in conservative surgery, or regarding amputation, as 
to the dentician or dentificier, for advice or services in 
the saving of his natural teeth, or their extraction. 
To drop the teaching of mechanical dentistry in private 
offices and in our colleges would, in a few years, perma- 
nently divide the practice, and very soon, each town of 
any considerable size, would have one or more of these 
practitioners who, by relying entirely upon success in this 
calling for support, and becoming personally responsible 
for what they did, would seek to redeem and elevate this 
particular art to the highest degree attainable, thereby 
enhancing the respectability and usefulness of their call- 
ing. And the dentologist would, by the broad and com- 
prehensive teachings of medicine, become more thoroughly 
grounded in its science, and be better qualified to take his 
rank with the other medically recognized specialists. 
With this thorough ground-work laid, he would not only 
be better prepared to treat from a medical standpoint the 
diseases belonging to his province, but also to grapple 
successfully by general treatment with those hidden and 
hitherto ill-understood influences which serve to prevent 
perfect dental development, and also to counteract those 
pathological conditions which act as causes of disease in 
the teeth and tend to break down their tissues. 
With the development of this higher mission of our 
profession there will be no occasion for the spectacle of 
dentology, with the grimace and shuffle of the mendicant, 16 
approaching the gates of the medical profession, and, 
with downcast eyes, begging a crumb of recognition. 
But with the accomplished separation of the two callings, 
heretofore combined in our practice, dentology, enriched 
by the experience and the special literature of the last 
half century, and the foundation of its practice laid exclu- 
sively in the science of medicine, rather than divided 
between that and a trade, the incongruity of the past, will, 
in a few years, disappear. By deriving its nourishment 
from the body of which it is a branch, it will become more 
and still more assimilated to the science and the practice 
of medicine, 1 without demand or the asking, there 
will, both by the uiblic and the medical faculty, be ac- 
corded, not to individual practitioners, but to the branch, 
a full and cordial recognition as a specialty in medicine, 
which will attract more generally to its ranks, as to an 
agreeable and useful held of labor, men of earnestness, 
ability, and culture, the peers of any in an honorable pro- 
fession.