THE DENTIST’S CHAIR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22835, 20 March 1936, Page 11

THE DENTIST’S CHAIR

BANISHING PAIN Dentistry had one of its big moments recently, when Dr Leßoy L. Hartman, of the Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery gave the world his formula. for desensitising the dentine for painless drilling of teeth. Whether the moment will go down as historic, whether it represents a new milestone in the progress of the dental profession, remains to be segn (says a writer in the New York TimesJ after the formula has had months of use'. It sent hundreds of dentists to the drug stores and the chemical houses with the formula in their hands. It brought a rush of patients eager to have their dental cavities buzzed painlessly. The formula has been tried in great numbers of cases in New York and vicinity, with varying success. One clinic reported that the Hartman prescription had worked perfectly in 80 per cent, of its applications. Most dentists wore hopeful and openminded a'bout it. When failure resulted, they were disposed to think that their first hastily concocted mixture might not have been chemically right; they would get a fresh supply and try again. Dentists and chemists alike were a bit astonished to find that the only ingredient required were alcohol, ether, and thymol, which have been used in dentistry for years, though not, perhaps, in the proportions called for in the formula. EARLY DENTISTRY. The Hartman announcement, backed by the prestige of a great college, served to remind the world that dental surgery has come a long way since the days when barbers were its chief practitioners and when “ tooth-drawers ” wore belts of teeth to advertise their trade. Dentistry of u sort goes back to prehistoric times; it existed in Mediterranean lands and in South America, as ancient jawbones show. But in our own era there were no dentists, as such, until Fauchard, in France about 1725, pointed the way for turning the dental art from “ a crude branch of mechanics ” to the beginning of the scientific profession that it is to-day. In Europe and in America for a century after Fauchard dentistry was little more than a neglected stepchild of medicine. The family doctor pulled teeth as a side lino. Dental specialists were few, and quacks preyed at will on the agonised public. American dentistry since 1830 has come along fast; these hundred years have seen it lifted from a low estate arid established as one of the high and humane callings. Dr Bernard W. Weinberger, historian of the profession, listed some of the notable steps in the advance, beginning with the founding, in New York in 1834, of the first dental society. Within five years came the first dental journal, then fho first dental college—it opened in Baltimore with one professor and two students. In 1844 occurred the event most dramatic, perhaps, in dental history, and in surgical history, too, when Dr Horace Wells, of Hartford, Connecticut, discovered that nitrous oxide had a more serious use than to entertain theatre audiences.

The Hartford Courant of December 10 of that year printed the advertisement of “A grand Exhibition of the Effects Produced by Inhaling Exhilarating or Laughing Gas ” The gas would be administered to all in the audience who desired (o inhale it. Twelve young men had volunteered to lead off. FIRST GAS TESTS.

Dr Wells saw the brave 12 inhale this stuff and go momentarily out of their heads. He himself inhaled it, and was afterwards reproached by his wife for making himself ridiculous before all Hartford. He noted that his fellow-performers, in their joyful gas jags, fell over chairs without pain. Quickly following up that lead, he took the gas again, this time privately, and let a fellow-dentist extract a troublesome tooth for him. “I didn’t feel it,” he declared. “A new era has conic! ” Demonstrating thereafter in Boston, he didn’t give his patient enough of the gas. The patient yelled, and Dr Wells was denounced as a faker. But he has a statue in Hartford to-day as the discoverer of anaesthesia, with all that it means to suffering humanity.

In 1851 Goodyear patented vulcanite, and dentures that fitted the mouth became possible, displacing those made of ivory, wood, and metal. The milestones were flashing by at a great rate now. New materials were perfected for fillings. The first tooth powder was marketed. The first flexible-arm foot-power engine for drilling was invented with a spinning wheel for a base. LOCAL ANESTHESIA. The 1880’s saw/the arrival of cocaine, and local anaesthesia, guttapercha rootcanal points, and the use of electric current in desensitising. Then came aseptic preparation of cavities and root canals, and, close on the heels of that, cast-gold inlays, novocaine, and oral hygiene. At the same time dental education was steadily rising—the Carnegie survey closed the diploma mills of dentistry as well as those of medicine. Dental legislation sponsored by the profession, was likewise keeping pace, and laws with teeth in them continually set new and higher standards. The long search for a harmless desensitising agent had brought forth many good preparations before Dr Hartman’s, notably the novocaine compounds, which enable the dentist to work freely in the dentine without ill-effects upon the patient’s comfort or his mouth tissues. But the best of these fail in certain cases.

Dentists agree that what their world needs most is a universal desensitiser, and they say that Dr Hartman, if he has found such a boon to mankind, is sure of a place alongside Dr Wells in the l hall of fame.

One dentist remarks: “After the publicity which the Hartman formula has received a bottle of the liquid in sight in the office will have a good psychological effect, if it accomplishes nothing else.” A practitioner who inclines towards the science side of his calling thinks that the most important possible effect of the Hartman discovery has been somewhat overlooked in the excitement. The Hartman hypothesis that the dentine contains “ lipoids,” or tissues that transmit sensation, provides a new approach to the histology of dentistry and of general physiology. In particular, this scientist points out the new point of view may encourage a ,I'resh consideration of the obscure subject of caries, or tooth decay, the most extensive of human diseases, about the causes of which the theorists are far apart. Perhaps the Hartman conclusions will prompt research that will add a vital chapter to our knowledge of our grinders, why they cease and become few, and how they can be defended against their chief enemy.