The principles and practice of dentistry : including anatomy, physiology, pathology, therapeutics, dental surgery and mechanism / by Chapin A. Harris.

  • Harris, Chapin A. (Chapin Aaron), 1806-1860.
Date:
1885
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles and practice of dentistry : including anatomy, physiology, pathology, therapeutics, dental surgery and mechanism / by Chapin A. Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    out the true basis both of the unity and the diversity of the two branches of dental practice. The editor does not feel at liberty to deviate, in the present volume, so widely from the author's arrange- ment ; yet he may here suggest the following classification of dental therapeutics, or the Art of Dentistry. I. Medical. II. Surgical: (1. Oral surgery; 2. Dental surgery.) III. Prosthetic: (1. Struc- tural ; 2. Organic.) As medicine and surgery are combined in the practice of the majority of medical men, so the two classes of prosthetic mechan- ism are usually practiced together; but such practice, although in a laro-e number of cases unavoidable, does not tend to the develop- ment of highest excellence in either department. Certain details of the laboratory unfit the hand for some of the more delicate operations of structural prosthetics; whilst the engrossing and more remunerative duties of the chair almost inevitably lead to a hastv and negligent performance of laboratory work. The usual method of meeting this difficulty, that is by dividing the duties of orc^anic prosthesis, cannot be too severely condemned. It is like requiring an artist to paint a correct portrait from verbal descrip- tion • it io-nores every principle of dental aesthetics, and its results are artificial dentures, so devoid of expression and individuality, as to mar the features they are intended to adorn. But the prosthetic character of dentistry subjects it to a danger more serious than this unwise division of inseparable duties. Scientific mechanism implies not only skill in construction, but judgment and purpose in application. Unfortunately a few months' use of tools enables one who has natural aptitude in handling them to produce specimens of workmanship which are accepted as evi- dence of peculiar fitness for dentistry. If no early education has onven habits of study, the fascinations of hand-work are permitted to engross time that should be given to the harder and more dis- tasteful head-work. The training, thus commencing and ending in mechanism, is discreditable, not because of its mechanism, but because being one-sided and partial, it necessarily fails to accomplish that which it promises. Such training may make dental laborers, tradesmen, or artisans; but never dental artists, or scientific me- chanicians : nor can the dentistry which they practice be, in any respect, identified with that which we have defined as a branch of the art of medicine. A preparation begun in pure science may end in correct practice,