Dentist

“ The dentist, contemplating her with the self-satisfaction of a successful operator, is a young man of thirty or thereabouts. He does not give the impression of being much of a workman: his professional manner evidently strikes him as being a joke; and it is underlain by a thoughtless pleasantry which betrays the young gentleman still unsettled and in search of amusing adventures, behind the newly set-up dentist in search of patients. ”

“ The proper application of these principles cannot fail to be of immense value to the dentist and oral surgeon in their daily practice. In relieving toothache and neuralgia, in removing deposits, in extracting teeth, and in fact in most painful operations which dentists are called upon to perform, this pressure technique should prove invaluable, as many dentists are learning every day. ”

“ From the ages of six to fifteen years, the teeth of children should be examined, at least once in six months, by a dentist, who, if skilful, can seldom fail of rendering these ornaments of the human countenance regular, healthy, and beautiful. It is customary in England and France, for the proprietors of seminaries of learning to employ a dentist to visit their establishments regularly, for the purpose of performing such operations, and of administering such remedies, as their pupils may require. ”

“ As soon as decay begins in a tooth it should receive the attention of a competent dentist, and where this is done a true tooth-ache never occurs. Where one has been so neglectful as to permit the exposure of the nerve of a tooth, he can only be saved from much suffering by going at once to a dentist. ”

“ Many of them confess the fact in the frankest possible way. If you doubt it, ask the next dentist about the wisdom and courage of average manhood under the dispensation of a bad tooth. As a tooth is to a liver, so are the dentists' patients to the doctors', in the want of the two excellences above mentioned. ”

“ In this town, those who intend to become dentists are now obliged to undergo an examination, but although the examiners be most learned and well versed in all the other parts of surgery, I think, if I may be allowed to express my opinion, that as they do not ordinarily themselves practise dental surgery, it would not be amiss on these occasions to admit an able and experienced dentist, who might sound the aspirant as to the difficulties which have come before him in the course of the long practice of his art, and who could communicate to them the means of surmounting them. ”

“ Every six months visit your dentist and have your teeth thoroughly examined. The smallest cavities should be filled at once, and the pain will be less than when these agonizing crevices get so large that you feel that it's a flip-up between going to a dentist or jumping into the lake. I know that most of us women are cowards when it comes to seances in dentist chairs, but all such things—like house-cleaning and writing letters to folks you don't like, and entertaining your husband's maiden aunt—all these things are heaps nicer when they're well over with. ”

“ Only regular examination by the dentist can keep the teeth in good condition, and periodic visits at least once a year to a dentist's office, not to the kind advertised by Indians where they are willing to extract teeth without pain, free, but where a regularly qualified dentist practices, should be the habit. ”

“ Even in England a dentist is a troublesome creature, whom careful people find difficult to class. He hovers between the professions and the trades; he may be only a little lower than the doctors, or he may be down among the chemists, or even beneath them. The son of the Italian dentist felt this too. ”

“ A dentist, in one sense, is |170| a professional man, but, in another sense, his calling is mainly mechanical, and the tools which he employs are used in mechanical operations. Indeed, dentistry was formerly purely mechanical, and instruction in it scarcely went beyond manual dexterity in the use of tools; and a knowledge of the human system generally, and of the diseases which might affect the teeth and render an operation important, was by no means considered necessary. ”

“ If our examination of the mouth discloses anything likely to interfere with mastication the aid of the dentist should at once be sought, but every physician should be so far acquainted with disorders of the teeth as to be able to say, in the majority of cases, at all events, when this is necessary. ”

“ But because parent, teacher, or child cannot discover defects does not prove that dental care is not imperative; hence the importance of examination by a dentist or by a physician competent to discover dental needs. If a private, public, or parochial school has no paid visiting dentist, a zealous school officer can, at least in large towns, persuade one or more dentists or physicians to make a few first tests to confirm the teacher's findings, and to persuade the community that regular examination and reëxamination are necessary and a saving of pain, beauty, and money. ”

“ Let the dentist clean them and remove the tartar, if any, as commercial preparations often injure. Most dentists will save a tooth wherever possible. There is little excuse for bad teeth these days, since modern dentistry can work marvels. ”

“ It is a not unfamiliar experience for a man to go to a dentist, get into a chair and point to a toothache in the upper right or northeast corner of his mouth and have the dentist tell him that the toothache he thinks he is having there is really in the root of a tooth in the right lower or southwest corner. ”

“ Every dentist who has ever given any thought to the development of his profession must have realized the growing necessity for an accessible and authoritative history of the dental art. The early efforts in this direction by Duval, Fitch, Carabelli, Snell, Linderer, Harris, and others, followed in this country by the more recent essays of Perine, Dexter, and Cigrand, are out of print and difficult to obtain. ”

“ The patient still persists in sitting with his mouth stretched open to its widest limit, waiting for the operation to begin, and will only close the orifice when he is well shaken and shown the tooth. The dentist gives him some yellow liquid to hold in his mouth, which the man insists on swallowing, wets a handkerchief and washes his face, roughly rubbing his nose the wrong way, and lets him go. Every step of the process is eagerly watched by the delighted spectators. ”

“ The Geschichte der Zahnheilkunde, by Geist-Jacobi, and Notice sur l’Histoire de l’Art Dentaire, by Lemerle, have given to the practitioners of Germany and France valuable information which the English-speaking dentist has often sadly lacked. ”

“ To supply this want of instruction it would have been of great use if some able dentist, for example the late Monsieur Carmeline, who, in his day, practised with general applause, had made us acquainted with262 his mode of operating and with the knowledge acquired through the successful treatment of a great number of important cases. ”

“ The modern dentist, on the other hand, kills nerves to teeth with the very greatest reluctance and only as a last resort, because he knows full well that in so doing he is opening the way for the establishment of pus pockets with the train of ills that is likely to follow. ”

“ Just as a dentist must know about the orthopedy of the jaw and skull and the neurology of the teeth a neurologist and an orthopedist are expected to know something, though not in great detail, about dentition. Each of us is a unity of what all the medical and psychological specialties study in different ways, plus a good deal more, as artists, writers, theologians, and musicians make evident. ”

“ If there is one phase of our present-day medicine and surgery that most of us are likely to be quite sure is of very recent development it is dentistry. Probably most people would declare at once that they had every reason to think that the science and art of dentistry, as we have it now, developed for the first time in the world's history during the last generation or two. ”

“ A good dentist can remedy all these malformations and though it may be troublesome at the time, the child, when grown, will blame you for not having relieved him of them. From babyhood, the child should be taught that cleansing the teeth is as important a part of the toilet as washing the hands. ”

“ A simple system of record of the natural peculiarities of the teeth and of the artificial operations upon them could be devised which in the hands of a competent person, who would need to be an expert dentist, of course, would furnish reliable and less perishable evidence than the other external signs of the body. Every dentist keeps a record of all the operations he performs for every patient, upon an individual chart or page in a special diagram, for his own convenience and protection. ”

“ A dentist cannot be properly denominated a ‘mechanic.’ It is true that the practice of his art requires the use of instruments for manual operations, and that much of it consists in manual operations; but it also involves a knowledge of the physiology of the teeth, which cannot be acquired but by a proper course of study, and this is taught by learned treatises upon the subject, and as a distinct though limited part of the medical art, in institutions established for the purpose. ”

“ The human family is subject to a variety of diseases in the teeth, which generally cause the final destruction or loss of these important instruments, unless judicious remedies are applied in proper season. These remedies are administered by the dentist.
2. There are few persons, in proportion to the great mass of the people, who seem to be aware of the utility of dentistry; for, taking the United States together, not more than one person in a hundred ever resorts to the professors of this art, with the view of obtaining a remedy for any dental disease with which he may be afflicted. ”

“ The mark o’ mouth is kept up in a hoss here by the file, and a hay-cutter saves his teeth, and helps his digestion. Well, a dentist does the same good turn for a woman; it makes her pass for several years younger; and helps her looks, mends her voice, and makes her as smart as a three year old. ”

“ He is born in the West, is the dentist,
And he speaks with a delicate twang,
When polite as a prince,
He requests you to "rinse,"
After gently removing a fang.
('Tis to save wear-and-tear to the mouth, one supposes,
That dentists consistently talk through their noses.)
He is painfully shy, is the dentist;
For he lives such a hand-to-mouth life.
When the sex known as "fair"
Comes and sits in his chair,
He will call for his sister or wife,
For a lady-companion or female relation,—
So strong is the instinct of self-preservation!
[Pg 37]
He's a talkative man, is the dentist ”

“ When the principles of the Prophylactic School spread, it is safe to say that while the importance of the dentist will become even more generally recognized than it is to-day, nevertheless he will pull fewer teeth, and use less gold and other metals. ”

“ But, as few persons resort to the dentist, until the near approach of deformity, or until they are impelled by pain to seek relief, a great proportion of dental operations consists in inserting artificial teeth, and in extracting those which are past recovery. ”

“ It requires as much skill and knowledge to extract teeth well, as it does to amputate a limb; yet some persons, who possess strong arms, will obtain a pair of forceps, or a tooth-key, and hang out the sign of “surgeon-dentist,” although ignorant of the principles that should guide them. ”

“ DENTISTS. Nothing has surprised me more, than that women have not engaged in the profession of dentistry. Her gentle touch, the size and flexibility of her fingers, her quick sympathies, her instinctive sense of proportion and beauty, and her conscientiousness present, altogether, singular qualifications for the dental profession. Dentistry is a lucrative business, and the doors are wide open to women. ”

“ These I took to my dentist for an opinion. He was at once interested, [Pg 126] because it seems that members of the dental profession have long urged upon the police the reliance that may be placed upon the dentist in identifying living criminals or unknown dead bodies. He examined the charred teeth, and taking a blank chart of the mouth, he plotted out the size and positions of the fillings which once had been present. ”

“ He had great ideas upon the importance of a regular and almost daily visit to the dentist. He himself went to a dentist as he would have gone to a hairdresser’s, and he insisted that all the little girls he knew should go too. ”

“ Twice each year you should have a dentist examine your teeth, to see if there are any little spots where decay has started. If you have kept your teeth perfectly clean all the time, and have not chipped off little pieces, there will be none of these decayed spots. ”

“ Recommending regular visits to the dentist, who is represented as a friend that can assist the child to avoid tooth troubles. If habits of oral hygiene are to be formed at all, they must be instilled while the child mind is most plastic ”

“ It should be the practice of everyone to have the teeth looked over at least once a year by a good dentist, as even where cleansing is diligently performed decay frequently sets in on their inner sides. ”

“ Another thing: dentists should not be allowed out loose about the streets. They exercise a blighting influence. You are strolling along in the sunshine, head high, chest expanded, telling some wide-eyed young thing what you and Haig did to Ludendorff, when suddenly you meet the dentist. You look at him, he looks at you, and his eyes seem to say, "What ho, my hero! ”