Dr. J. Hall Moore, Richmond, Va. :-One suggestion I would like to make. For years I have had my bracket covered, and where convenient, the drawers of my cabinet lined with glass instead of felt. This makes conditions more aseptic.

My principal antiseptic is carbolic acid. It is a good sterilizing medicament for your instruments. Carbolic acid in solution with soda is a very good sterilizing agent. The soda prevents rust, and the carbolic acid sterilizes. Forceps and all steel instruments should be boiled in the soda-carbolic solution.

Dr. J. P. Gray, Nashville, Tenn. :-I do not care to be classed as being opposed to cleanliness, but it does seem that we carry this too far. We can only take it by comparison. Twenty-five years ago, when I was around a dental office a great deal, they knew nothing of bacteria, and if it had been the case that every time an instrument was used, that was not thoroughly sterilized, it had poisoned the patient, the population would have all been gone by this time. None would have been left for the dentist to work upon. If it will produce more caries by introducing bacteria into the mouth, that is what we are after. We need more teeth to fill.

We need more money. On account of so many young men being turned out of the colleges the profession is too full.

One way

to kill these bacteria is with burs, that is, if they are like some I have seen. They have been used so long, and have become so smooth, and have to be run so fast to cut the tooth structure, that the heat from the burs will kill all the bacteria in the teeth. Using good dull burs has a good effect upon the patient. It impresses upon the patient the fact that they are going to suffer when they come to the dentist, and they try to keep their mouths in good condition to avoid coming to you. To sum it up, we must use judgment in this work. I thank the gentleman very much for the valuable paper.

Dr. B. Holly Smith, Baltimore:-Dr. Gray has made an accusation, which I challenge him now to prove; that the dental profession is full. Dr. Gray may have employed the greater part of his time in trying to make it hot for the human race, but I do not believe he has the right to rise in this assembly and speak lightly of this question. It is a serious matter. Dr. Gray did not mean what he said,

he seldom ever does. I do not think there is anyone here, who knows him, that will take him seriously in what he has said

I think every dentist should study this question more, and their efforts should be to so demean themselves in their practice that they shall have at least the respect of the people among whom they practice. We know that it is not a trifling matter in the eyes of our patients. There is too much constant study on this line of asepticism for us to treat it lightly. There may be some here, that do not know that this gray-headed man with such a long suit of hair has absolutely not been in earnest. I claim that the dentists I have known have been clean men. We should make every effort to have our instruments sterilized, keep our hands clean, and protect ourselves from any accusation of uncleanliness. I think it is useless from our knowledge of bacteria to say anything about the means of sanitation. The methods are too well known in our profession to go into particulars.

Dr. Gray-I did not know that I was stirring up the gentleman SO. I am surprised that he should become so thoroughly aroused over remarks, that were partly in earnest and partly in fun. I know you sterilize your instruments, and I know the dental profession is a clean set of men, but I do not believe all that Dr. Young has said. I believe thorough cleanliness is necessary as much as you do. As to saying I am never in earnest, it is not true. If 1 have awakened the interest of the gentlemen sufficiently to make him discuss this subject, I feel that I have done some good this evening. As to my long suit of hair, I admit that I haven't as much as he has, but I draw the line on the color.

Dr. Smith:-You Southern people always were inclined to draw the line on color. I apologize to this body for taking up the time, but I say it seriously that I was not willing for anyone to go out of this room under the false impression that was getting out. I knew Dr. Gray would right himself when goaded to it.

Dr. J. R. Beach, Clarksville, Tenn. :-I believe in the sterilization of dental instruments, and think we cannot be too careful in the manner in which they are sterilized. Heat can be relied upon as the best germ destroyer, though it is good practice, in some cases, to immerse the points of the instruments in some good germicide before immediate use.

Especially let us be careful in sterilizing instruments used in the treatment of abscesses; forceps, hypodermic syringe, lancets, etc., thereby running no risk of inoculating the tissues with an infectious disease.

If the essayist is an extremist, though I do not think he is, it is far better to be on that side of this important question than on the apathetical side.

Dr. W. Mitchell, London, Eng. :-I came in rather late, just as the paper was closing, but presume it was in connection with the sterilization of instruments. I heartily agree with what has been said by those who have preceded me, in regard to the necessity of this important branch. It is important in that it aids us to do our work right. We must protect our patients from the ravages of bacteria. We are all impressed with the importance of bacteria, as impressed by the colleges. I can only recommend it to the students, and would impress upon them the necessity of carrying the process of sterilization as they find best according to their requirements, and thereby carry along this work. It is undoubtedly on the right line.

One fact presents itself to my mind; that is, that it belongs to the English-speaking races to be the greatest sterilizers on the face of the earth. Civilization is nothing more than physical and moral sterilization.

We should wash our hands as we go through our operations. It helps us in our operations; makes them more aseptic, and also makes a good impression upon our patients. I think it very necessary to perfectly sterilize all instruments before being used in the mouth. I do not know that I can add anything to what has been said further than the above.

Dr. Young, in closing his discussion, said: "I have nothing more to say except to deny the accusation that I am an extremist. The one thing that impressed the necessity of asepsis upon me was a case of blood-poisoning that I had myself. I treated an abscess, an1 happened to have a small abrasion on one of my fingers. After finishing the case, and washing my hands I evidently got infection. That night I suffered intensely with pain, and within the next 24 hours large red lines appeared on my arms, accompanied by considerable swelling. It was a plain case of blood-poison, and I am confident that quick treatment and a good constitution saved me.

I keep my sterilizer by my side at all times, and drop my instruments into it after using them instead of putting them back into my I thank the gentlemen very much for the discussion of the

paper. The Committee on Education, Nomenclature, Literature, Voluntary and Special Essays, being called, Dr. B. Holly Smith, of Baltimore, Md., Chairman, read the following report:

Mr. President and Members of the Southern Branch of the National Dental Association:

As chairman of your committee on dental education, it is thought well to review briefly the present status of the subject, in order that suggestions which may be made for improvement may come in proper sequence to form successful action. To do this it is impossibe to close our eyes to marvelous changes wrought in methods and theories of training since 1885, when the N. A. D. F. was organized at the suggestion of the late Dr. R. B. Winder of Baltimore.

At that time the dental student who poorly substantiated a claim to five years' pupilage or practice was graduated in one session of five months, and otherwise was permitted to apply for final examination after two years of five months each. The work of that association of teachers has gradually brought the course of instruction from this point to two years of six months, three years of six months, three years of seven months, and finally this year to four years of seven months. It has gradually (some have thought too rapidly) brought our teaching institutions opportunity for not only more extended laboratory and infirmary training, but has widened the field of instruction generally, taking into the curriculum many collateral and associated branches, tending to make the dentist of to-day's production not only better informed, but a better trained man than his brother of '85.

It must not be said that George Washington's cherry tree acknowledgement of "I did it with my little hatchet" is altogether appropriate as a claim for this association. All the time the widest publicity has been given to its proceedings. Comment, both unsought and solicited, has been freely offered in the dental press and at dental meetings. Star chamber proceedings have not prevailed, but in every move the dental profession itself has seemed to be acting. The impatient ones have been held in check, and upon the whole we may say that the wisest counsel has prevailed.

Not the least important of the services rendered to the profession at large by the N. A. D. F. has been the drawing into the interest and discussion of its movements such a large number of men who are not teachers, but have given much thought and study to improvement of curriculum and extension of course of study. Because of this free discussion and agitation there has arisen in this country, we might say, an aristocracy of learning in the domain of dental education, embracing, it is true, many purely theorists, many impractical and speculative formulæ, not a few wild and chimerical schemes, but nevertheless tending to widen and diversify knowledge of the subject.

Dental education is one of the regularly assigned subjects for discussion in all well-regulated dental societies, and perhaps no other elicits such ready and varied comment; indeed, we are almost willing to say that if there lives a dentist, a member of a dental association or not, who is not prepared to discuss the subject of dental education, he is fit for "treason, stratagems and spoils." The average man will not only discuss the subject, but has new and original ideas concerning it. These he offers free, without money and without price. Even these effusions do good, perhaps by way of contrast, enabling those of wider experience and more practice to get the poetic or romantic, or, not less important, the absurd side of the question. I challenge any man, therefore, to say that this subject has not been discussed, or that upon many points there is not generally prevailing a unanimity of opinion.

Not the least uniformly do we believe, both as teachers and practitioners, that the training of the dentist is a special work to be done by practical dentists. We have not, I hope, extended the course of study that men preparing to practice dentistry may dawdle along through the ornamental paths of extra medicine. The danger seems to be just there, that the purpose of the student may become confused by the demand that he select his essentials from medical work, which he is compelled to take along with the medical student, and which more often is prepared for the latter rather than for him. To make myself plainer, I do not believe in the economical arrangement of training dental students in medical classes. The anatomy, the physiology, materia medica, pathology, therapeutics, surgery and all laboratory and infirmary work should be prepared for the dental student, and with a view to fit him to practice dentistry, and not to fit him to rub shoulders with his medical brothers. A knowledge of general anatomy is desirable, but the more particular niceties of this study should be insisted upon from a dental standpoint, and if done from the standpoint of the general surgeon it is at the expense of other essentials of dentistry.

The same may be said for the other studies above mentioned. No one will, in this day of enlightenment, deny that dentistry is a part of the healing art; indeed it is perhaps the most helpful, and certainly most hopeful of success, in its undertaken field; but all the more the training of its votaries must be a special training.

Too much time has been given to the subject to allow compromises in its doing. It cannot be denied that there have arisen in our midst a considerable number of dentists, ultra medically inclined, decrying the strictly dental position and courting medical association only.

A classmate of your essayist, who at his graduation matriculated at a medical university, and after two years graduated in medicine, said a few days ago, as many erring must say: "If I had only spent that time under the pupilage of teachers specially qualified to fit me for the practice of dentistry, how much better it would have been for me and my patients. I have had perhaps one case which my medical knowledge would fit me to treat to one hundred where my post-graduate course in dentistry would have made me accomplished." Dentistry is a wide field, and I do not contend that there are not advantages to be gained by those who are medically educated dentists