Canterbury’s Early Dentists

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31760, 17 August 1968, Page 5

Canterbury’s Early Dentists

(Specially written for "The Press" by R. C. LAMB >

Dentists were scarce in the early days of Christchurch and the settlement of Canterbury was 11 years old before any appeared among the residents.

A Christchurch almanac of 1861 listed two dentists, one of whom was also described as a watchmaker and jeweller. There will be no such shortage next week, when about 300 dentists will be here for the conference of the New Zealand Dental Association.

The occasion is an appropriate one on which to trace the early beginnings of dentistry in Canterbury.

In January. 1846, when Joseph Greenwood was farming at Purau with his two brothers, a French whaling ship was anchored at Port Levy. On January 29. Joseph, wishing to see the ship's doctor, went on board where he stayed the night. : On the following day he wrote in his diary:—“The doctor stuffed my tooth, gave me some medicine for Heaphy and then went on board the Friends (an Ameri-i can whaler) to a sick man there. The stuffing almost directly after he was gone came out of my tooth. - ’ Three years later, in January 1850. Canterbury’s first medical practitioner. Dr William Donald, walked from; Lyttelton to a surveyors’ i camp near Ashley—a dis-1 tance of over 30 miles—to I attend a man dangerously ill. According to the diary of one of the surveyors, Charles Torlesse. the doctor arrived at the camp “very tired, having walked all the way from the port, and suffering from a severe toothache.” No remedy for the doctor’s complaint is mentioned, and certainly the diary contains no word of a dentist.

A Side-line To move forward to December. 1861, a census return of that month, which enumerated the Christchurch population to “rank, profession, or usual occupation,” listed 12 doctors but no dentists. A current Christchurch almanac, however, listed two dentists, namely C. Cooper and D. C. Anderson. The latter was also listed as a watchmaker and jeweller. He probably practised dentistry as a side-line. Nor is this to be wondered at The curriculum laid down for a youth aspiring to be a dentist was set out in a contemporary book on dental practice as follows:—“A boy at the age of 12 years, with; such development of faculties ; as clearly indicates a ‘me-| chanical genius,’ should be I placed in a clockmaker’s i shop till the age of 17. From 17 to 19 he should be em-, ployed at watch-work to fine down his hand.” Mr C. Cooper worked with Drs Turnbull and Hilson until June. 1862, when he announced in the "Lyttelton Times” that he was setting up in practice in Oxford Terrace West as a surgeon dentist, and that he was expecting shortly from England “a full supply of dental materials for the insertion of artificial teeth in the latest approved methods."

Immediately below this advertisement there was print-1 ed a testimonial from Dr Turnbull vouching for Mr' Cooper’s efficiency, and stat- i ing that he possessed “the skill and gentleness requisite i in his profession." His rooms; were on the west side of i Colombo Street, between! Cashel and Hereford Streets, | In June, 1864, an extensive fire destroyed many buildings; in this block, and Mr Cooper was forced to find temporarypremises in Gloucester Street. On returning to his former rooms in the follow-j ing November, he inserted an advertisement in “The Press.” stating that he had imported “a fresh stock of dental I materials including complete vulcanising apparatus,” and; that he filled teeth with gold; or amalgam. Dentists Act In 1880 Parliament passed the Dentists Act under the provisions of which all dentists were required to be registered by June of the following year. Failure to do so would entail a fine of £2O. The New Zealand census of occupations of April, 1881, enumerates 46 dentists (including apprentices). The numbers for each province were given as follows: Auckland, 10: Taranaki, two; Wellington, four: Hawke's Bay. two (one of whom was Margaret Caro of Napier, the only New Zealand woman then in practice); Marlborough, two; Nelson, five; Westland, one: Canterbury. 11; Otago, nine: Chatham Islands, nil. Some dentists were slow in registering. Among the 78 on the register of the profession published in 1883, only two Christchurch dentists. J. Irvine and S. B. Seymour, are included, although three others are named in a local almanac published then.

Painful Extraction An interesting case was tried before the Lyttelton Resident Magistrate (J. Ollivier) on March 5. 1884, when a man named James Small sued A. W. Parsons, a chemist of that town, “for £lB 18s damages and expenses caused by defendant's unskillfulness in extracting a tooth.” Small, giving evidence, said:’—“My tooth began to ache on June 8 Next day I called on Mr Parsons. I saw on his window ’Teeth Extracted.’ He said he could draw out my tooth. I a? -

sat down. He took an instrument and gave my jaw an infernal screw”. . . It appears from what follows that for some time after the tooth had been extracted. Small suffered a good deal of pain arising from the stump that remained in his jaw. In the following December he was staying at the" Whitecliffs Hotel where a Christchurch dentist, Mr James Irvine, also happened to be in resi-

dence. Mr Irvine, who had been in practice for several years, extracted the stump !of Mr Small’s tooth with a pen-knife, and charged him ten shillings for the operation. He then gave him £3 to bring action against Mr Parsons in order “to test the Dentists Act.” It should be noted that Mr Parsons said in evidence that he had been in practice for 12 years and Jthat he did not know “the scientific names of teeth.” The magistrate, after hearing a lot of evidence, found that “nothing in the remotest ! degree had been proved of negligence, unskilfulness, or 'carelessness by the plaintiff” and gave judgment for the defendant with full costs. “Asserting Rights”

On April 8, 1889. it was reported in the “Lyttelton Times” that members of the i dental profession were about ;to “assert their rights by convening a meeting of all ; those who were qualified and 'registered, to consider what : steps should be taken” to | penalise those who were committing a breach of the Act “by practising without being iduly registered.” Tiie meeting was held that very day in the rooms of Mr F. G. Thomas, dentist, in Cathedral Square, besides whom there were present Messrs W. A. German, S. B. Seymour, W. J. Sykes and A. E. Merewether.

According to one authority, IMr O. V. Davies, L.D.S., Merewether had on February T, 1889. “sent a circular to all dentists in New Zealand who were likely to take an interest in a movement for forming a dental associaition.” If that is so, the I Christchurch meeting may I have been organised by Mere- ! wether as a further step in ; promoting the movement. The meeting passed three motions, the first of which

expressed -he desirability of forming a dental association of New Zealand. The second declared “that the secretary communicate with members of the profession in Wellington, Auckland, Dunedin, Invercargill, etc., requesting their co-operation in carrying out the measure, and suggesting to them calling a meeting 1 for that purpose.” The third! proposed “that Mr Audleyl Merewether be appointed honorary secretary.” Early in the following July a meeting of dentists took place in Wellington where the mooted Dental Association of New Zealand was formed. Mr A. Boot of Dunedin was elected president: Mr Edwin Cox of Auckland, vice-presi-dent, and Mr Frank Armstrong of Dunedin, secretary and treasurer. The- associai tion held its first annual meeting in Dunedin in January, 1890: but after that, states Mr O. V. Davies in the 1955 July issue of the “New Zealand Dental Journal,” it “gradually faded out of existence, although the Welling- . ton members met from time I to time.” j Formed In 1905 The present New Zealand Dental Association was , formed at a conference of dentists which met in Wel- ; lington in June, 1905. One of the speakers at the conference was Mr F. W. Thompson, president of the Christchurch Odontological Society, who read a paper on “The Teeth of Our Children: A plea for better care and prevention.” Mr Thompson's observations were based on an examination he had made of the teeth of 106 children attendI ing the Waltham School, their ages ranging from 9 to 14. I Only one of the children was found to have “all the teeth sound,” and he happened to , be an Australian boy who had recently arrived in this ■ country. Of the 105 others, about

four had their teeth stopped, said Mr Thompsdn. He added that by immediate attention about 40 per cent of the children could be easily saved. The rest he considered were “too far gone to admit ment of a conservative of really satisfactory treatcharacter.”

The problem, as he envisaged it, was one that needed tackling on a national scale, as he reminded his audience that “the number of scholars attending Government schools” was then “upwards of 130,000.” He advocated the systematic and compulsory examination of the teeth of children in State schools, by dentists acting under the authority of the State. “The Press” backed up Mr Thompson in an editorial which contained the following observation: “We seem to be absolutely in the dark as to the cause for the excessive prevalence of dental caries ... we know one practitioner who asserts that there is no more pernicious habit than that of giving soft biscuits to children to eat before they go to bed.”

Mr Thompson figured prominently at the third conference of the New Zealand Dental Association, held in Christchurch in February, 1907. On that occasion he gave the presidential address in the Canterbury College hall, when he pointed to the valuable work the association had done in subscribing a sum of £lOOO towards the establishment of a dental school in Dunedin. The school was opened that year with a total attendance of 10 students: and during its first nine month 1480 operations were performed there. “Rotatary Needle” Running one’s eye down the New Zealand Dentists’ Register of 1908. one is led to single out three Christchurch names: the veteran James Irvine, who had been in practice here for 32 years: Annie Hay, the only woman in practice here then; and Dr Nathaniel A. Neeley, whose rooms were in Cathedral Square. He was one of the only three on this register who held a doctorate in dental surgery, having graduated at Vanderbilt University, U.S.A., in 1887. In April, 1908, the following strange occurrence was reported in the “Lyttelton Times”;—A Christchurch resident had recently had his l teeth seen to by a dentist’ “who used rotatory needle fori boring the teeth.” When finished with the instrument, the dentist had placed it on one side. Its points then fell on to the patient's leg “and the needle, which was still rotating, made a hole in his leg and caused a wound severe enough to lay him up for some days."