DENTISTRY’S BACKGROUND

Waipa Post, Volume 47, Issue 3384, 24 October 1933, Page 5

DENTISTRY’S BACKGROUND

ETHICS AND SCIENCE.

LET US BE THANKFUL FOR PROGRESS.

Dentistry was robed in the mantle of science by one Pierre Fauchard, a Frenchman of the early eighteenth century. JUe was the first practitioner to break away from the false reasoning' and fantastic superstition of former t'mes. In an age when people still believed in magical incantations, and the application of redhot needles, he set dentistry on the path of humane and scientific progress. There are many interesting references in literature to legal enactments concerning the work of dentists. In the Twelve Tables of the Romans was a provision that no dental appliance of gold was to be buried with a corpse. The precious metal was not to go out of circulation! Dental treatment was originally part of the art of medicine. Now by the paradox of evoluition, the art of medicine is a part, though a most important one, of dentistry. Dental treatment flourished in Egypt earlier than elsewhere it would seem, for the Egyptians are the oldest civilised nation of whom we possess authentic records in this respect. In the shadow of the Pyramids were specialists for treatment of the teeth and for various parts of the body. The British Museum contains silent and impressive evidence not only of the majesty of the Pharaohs, but also for their submission to the ministrations of the tooth-puller for relief from that leveller of all rank —'toothache. In the famoub Ebers papyrus, which unlocks the door to so many of the riddles of Egypt may be found dental prescriptions that now date back fifty-seven centuries. Mummies have been discovered with some of the teeth stopped with smooth wooden plugs gilded over. This gave rise to the mistaken belief that the dentists of Egypt practised gold-filling. It is now thought, however, that these restorations were carried out when the body was embalmed. They were religious in character to ensure that the departed would not endure “the hell of all diseases ”in the nether world. Painless dentistry, one may call it. but the practitioner received no thanks from a grateful patient. It was a postmortem affair.

The dominant classes of India, Persia. China Japan, Mexico. Greece. Rome and Arabia undoubtedly suffered the ills of tooth-decay and pyorrhoea. They underwent torments not only from these disorders, but also from the well-meant treatment meted out by the practitioners of the day. There was no “laughing gas” in those times, and to have an obstinate tooth levered out was no laughing matter. Thus a long heritage of operations and recipes has accumulated through the ages. Medicine men, pagan priests physicians of the Middle Ages, travelling tooth-pullers, barber-surgeons of a more recent perod and the highly qualified practitioner of the present day, have assiduously applied their talents to the arrest and conquest of this universal scourge. In England John Hunter, an insatiable investigator, realised 1-50 years ago the danger of. allowing dead nerves to remain in teeth. He thus anticipated a principle of dental treatment which the X-rays confirm to-day. By the beginning of the eighteenth century dentists came to be regarded as a well-defined class, and the passing of a special examination was necessary. In 1839 the University of Maryland, U.S.A.' refused to teach dentistry as part of the medical course. Dentistry then bj a single decision was separated in the academ’c sense from, medicine. Although students of both professions now study the fundamental sciences in the same classroom, and attend medical lectures together, in the later stages of their training they pursue separate courses. To-day we seem to be overburdened with the physical disabilities resulting from too slow adaptation of bodily structure to material progress. Has dentistry, with its tradition of learning and heritage of practical skill, any special gift to offer for the alleviation of human ills? It has, but the progress achieved by persistent research is discounted by the apathy of the community. In the swollen jaws of our friends we find subject for jest. In ovar own sufferings we get solace from the thought that artificial substitutes may be haci that w'll be more durable and more impressive than the precarious gifts of nature. The modern graduate in dentist:y shares in the operative skill of the surgeon, the erudition of 'the physician, the dexterity of the goldsmith and the chastening knowledge of the pathologist. His daily work is concerned w'th invisible rays that travel with incredible velocity, with living organisms requiring a thousand magnifications even to be seen and with metal more piecious than gold. I-Ie has frequently the re ponsibilities of life and death l'terally in his hands. And his application of knowledge and skill is dominated by an ideal — the general and permanent improvement of the world’s health. Net least in importance in the comprehensive learning of this learned profession is the knowledge that dental disease is almost entirely a preventable malady. Next t'me we sit in the dentist’s chair let us be thankful that red-hot needles are things of the past, and that we can command treatment than even the phax’aohs o': c’d.