Eleazer Gidney: 1797-1876. A widely travelled dentist / [J. Menzies Campbell].

  • Campbell, J. Menzies (John Menzies), 1887-1974.
Date:
[1950]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Eleazer Gidney: 1797-1876. A widely travelled dentist / [J. Menzies Campbell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    WITh TH'L_ COMPUTE -TS Oi Hb Or. J. MENZJES CAMPBELL, 14, BUCKINGHAM TERRACE GLASGOW W.2. Reprinted from The Dental Magazine and Oral Topics ^ — - - i August, 1950 ELEAZER GIDNEY: 1797-1876 \ A Widely Travelled Dentist A CONTRIBUTION TO DENTAL HISTORY By J. MENZIES CAMPBELL, F.R.S.E., D.D.S., L.D.S., F.I.C.D. Hon. Member, Pierre Fauchard Academy : and La Societe Frangaise de I’Histoire de rArt Dentaire, etc. ELEAZER GIDNEY has intrigued the writer ever since he became inter¬ ested in dental history and biblio¬ graphy. Here was a man who was undoubtedly one of the most successful and prominent dentists of his day and generation—selected for honorary mem- oership of the American Society of Dental Surgeons at its first meeting, in August, 1840, possessed of a great estate and a palatial mansion on the Hudson River, New York, widely travelled when travel¬ ling presented great difficulties—and yet, inexplicably, a man of whom almost nothing was known. The few references to him in dental literature were scrappy, often obviously inaccurate, and almost in¬ variably copied without verification from earlier data, probably because no further facts had emerged. This influenced the writer to indulge in a long, intensive and arduous search, hop¬ ing that, eventually, he might succeed in presenting to the dental profession a com¬ posite, reliable sketch of Gidney. How¬ ever, at the outset, and at almost every step, apparently insuperable difficulties were encountered.