Plastics and plastic filling : as pertaining to the filling of all cavities of decay in teeth below medium in structure, and to difficult and inaccessible cavities in teeth of all grades of structure / by J. Foster Flagg.

  • Flagg, J. Foster (Josiah Foster), 1828-1903.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Plastics and plastic filling : as pertaining to the filling of all cavities of decay in teeth below medium in structure, and to difficult and inaccessible cavities in teeth of all grades of structure / by J. Foster Flagg. 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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    critical investigation of the merits and demerits of a material ■whicli had so exercised the minds of the leading men as to have shaken dentistry to its centre. The earnest workers wrought on till 1850; each year added to the proofs of the value of the condemned material; wretch- edly compounded; wretchedly manipulated; wretchedly abused; it was yet standing, after a trial of nearly twenty years, in many a tooth which had been filled by the pretentious French- men ! More carefully compounded; with better manipulation; and judiciously used instead of badly abused, it had given such convincing evidence of its utility, and had even so long ago lived down so much of false aspersion, as that many of the members of the American Society felt it a duty that the action of 1845 should be revoked, and the error of judgment evinced in the proceeding be fairly acknowledged. This feeling gave rise to more discussion, which resulted in the appointment of a committee to take into consideration the propriety of rescinding the former resolutions of pledge and expulsion. If the former action of the society was characterized by narrow-minded bigotry, the report of this committee was even worse. It is true, that it recommended that the resolutions which enforced the subscription to the protest and pledge against the use of amalgam and mineral paste fillings for teeth, be, and the same are, hereby rescinded and repealed; but it did so avowedly upon the belief that the resolutions had accom- plished the object for which they were designed^ and there no longer existed any necessity for their enforcement^ Can this be credited? And yet this is the record of the transaction. Again we are comforted in the knowledge that this con- temptible method of treating so important a matter resulted in the immediate resignation of quite a number of the members. Again the years rolled on; as truth was mighty and pre- vailed, so the society dwindled year by year, until at last, having lost all its former prestige^ a meeting was held at which the President—Dr. Elisha Townsend—was directed to call a meet- ing for the consideration of dissolution. At the meeting of 1855, a committee upon this subject was appointed. This com- mittee reported against dissolution, was continued, and the