THIRD DAY-AFTERNOON SESSION.

Meeting called to order by Vice-President, Dr. L. G. Noel, at 2:30 o'clock.

The Committee on Pathology, Materia Medica and Therapeutics being called upon for report, Dr. Geo. S. Vann, Chairman, Gadsden, Ala., submitted the following report:

Since the last meeting of the Southern branch in July, there have been recorded no conspicuous discoveries or developments, within the province of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, but your committee would call attention to Chloretone, which is claimed to be a mild local anesthetic having no deleterious effect upon the heart's action, and possessing considerable antiseptic properties. Also Adrenalin, which is one of the best hemostatics on the market, and in Oral Surgery has been found to act promptly in checking hemorrhage from the gums or that following nerve extirpation.

In reviewing the subject of Pathology we find an interesting description of the pathological processes in an unerupted tooth by W. D. Miller of Berlin, a case illustrating plainly how easily "discoloration, due solely to dried blood with which the cavities became filled during extraction, might be mistaken (without careful investigation) for caries of an unerupted tooth, thus leading to false views concerning tooth caries."

Another valuable paper under this head is one of almost revolutionary character on "Pyorrhea Alveolaris with Special Reference to Practical Medicine" by Dr. William Baldwin Keyes, London, appearing in the Dental Cosmos for January, 1902, in which he sets forth that the tendency of most modern thought is to show that so far from gout and rheumatism being the cause of pyorrhea alveolaris, they are often the effect; and that these general systemic affections, and many stomach troubles are the direct result of the chronic poisoning of the tissues of the patient by the toxins of pus produced by the disease in the mouth. These statements corroborate a prophecy made as far back as 1873, by our esteemed friend, Dr. J. Y. Crawford, at which time he asserted that "medical practitioners would never be able to combat, successfully, the phenomena of disease in the human system until they recognized the importance of the condition of the oral cavity."

In the way of original matter for the present meeting your committee begs leave to submit the following papers.

Dr. Geo. S. Vann, Gadsden, Ala., then read a paper on

APATHY IN THE DENTAL PROFESSION.

The reviewer, who has spent the greater part of the past few years in setting forth the progress of the nineteenth century, and praising its marvelous achievements, would do well to remember that every century of the past has been regarded as a wonderful era when compared with its predecessors; that the achievement of each succeeding one is only made possible by all that have gone before; and that no great character, or event in history stands alone, each being the product of a thousand contributing influences. Consequently, if we would form an unbiased judgment of the attainments, present status, and future of dentistry, which known as a profession, is the offspring of the nineteenth century, we must review the preceding periods and study their bearings upon its development.

That Dentistry is to some extent an ancient art cannot be questioned, but so barren of practical value are authentic references to the remote past, so chill the night of that age when barbarous hordes from the East overran the lands of culture and civilization enshrouding learning, science and the Arts within its pall of ignorance and superstition that it is an almost fruitless effort to trace the faint thread of its existance until we emerge from the darkness of the Middle Ages through the triumphal arch of the fifteenth century into the light of modern times.

Thus the fifteenth century, characterized as it was by a general awakening of the European mind from the lethargy of the Dark Ages, stands at the beginning of a new order of things, and becomes the first period of a cycle of unprecedented progress. During its earlier years new life and energy were infused into every department of human thought and enterprise, and the scattered treasures of preceding ages were gathered up and utilized as a foundation for modern civilization. By the middle of the century, gun-powder, the printing press and mariner's compass were contributed to the world's material advancement; and towards its close the progressive portions of civilized humanity were pushing towards the western limits of Europe, in direction of that "continent of the future,"

which discovered in the last decade came just in time to aid in the new growth of ideas, moral, intellectual and scientific, by offering a new world for their development free from the superstition, bigotry and intolerance of the old.

But, however remarkable the progress of the fifteenth century, it was along material lines; its energies were concentrated upon matter rather than man, giving him hitherto unknown continents for civilization, but accomplishing little for him as a moral and social being. Therefore, that man might remain master of the situation, the sixteenth century turned upon the pivot of human interest, developing the individual through the religious upheaval known as the Reformation, upon the emotional or moral side. During the seventeenth century so general was the dissemination of knowledge that the people became sensible of their intellectual powers and of their needs and rights as men. This consciousness found expression during the eighteenth century in a popular demand for civil and religious freedom, culminating in the liberation of the American colonies and their union under a Republican form of government. The cycle of dominant individualism being now complete by the development of the moral, intelectual and executive faculties of man, and the increased powers of the individual being concentrated upon the conquest and betterment of his environments the race is prepared for the appreciation of, and to be partakers in the organization of that profession which harmonizes in its being the progressive trinity of science, art, and the mechanics, the latter in its artistic perfection being the practical expression of scientific principles and theories relating to the treatment of the oral cavity and adjacent parts. That Americanism, which is regarded as the highest type of the new order of things, might have the proper material for the development of the Dental profession, history now repeats itself by returning to the material plane of the fifteenth century, which is evidenced by unprecedented geographical discoveries, great inventions and territorial expansion. The spirit of industrialism and commercialism has dominated all the activities of the century and as a result we have enormously increased capital and production, the concentration of large masses of people in cities, and the growth of social, commercial, religious and labor organizations. Thus the nineteenth century has prepared the material way for the social reorganization of

In

the race, as the fifteenth did for the uplifting of the individual. this new cycle of progress what is to be the mission of the twentieth century? Present conditions and the orderly sequence of history lead us to believe that it will be the parallel of the sixteenth; that human interests will prevail over material development, that emotional activity will expand into aesthetic and ethical life, and economic thought be directed chiefly, not to wealth production, but to wealth distribution for the uplift and wellbeing of mankind.

Therefore the passing of the nineteenth century and the dawning of the twentieth presages much to the student of affairs interested in the ethical and sociological progress of the Dental Profession; how much, depends upon the capacity and powers of the present membership to address themselves to the problems developed by the industrialism of the past century, which are already pressing for solution.

Happily time and memory travel in opposite directions and it is our privilege to-day to review the unforgotten past of modern Dentistry, catch its spirit and learn its lessons, thereby preparing ourselves for a better performance of the duty which lies nearest us, an intelligent progress in the new century, and gaining a nobler conception of our inheritance as a profession.

Now in order that we may apprehend more fully the material difficulties of the pioneer period, and by contrast show how great a debt of gratitude we owe the fathers of the Dental Profession, imagine the operator of to-day divested of all modern appliances and methods, empty his cabinet of its array of instruments and late preparations of gold, take away the rubber-dam, remove his electrical appliances, obliterate his knowledge of anesthesia, of pathological conditions, of bacteriological investigation, and all ideas of fermentation, sepsis and asepsis, which together with the elimination of educational and associational features leaves him alone and barehanded, enveloped in an atmosphere of suspicion and indifference, laboring behind closed doors to forge out as best he can the tools necessary for his work.

But this condition of affairs was the hour of deepest gloom that precedes the dawn, toward which a few men, before whose vision had arisen the future possibilities of an organized profession, turned their faces. With the coming day there was much to be done, so

contradicting the negative attitude of their forerunners and contemporaries, they put into practice the golden rule of life, and lo! it became a creative force, generating fraternal feeling and elaborating itself into a written code to which all could subscribe. It drew men together in societies, unlocking their laboratories and teaching them that upon mutual aid and reliance rested the future of Dentistry; enlisted the sympathy and energy of those capacitated to write books and publish magazines in the interest of dental science and art; and inspired philanthropic ideas which enabled them to establish colleges with scientific and technical training for young men. These halls of learning are to-day the fitting memorials of noble lives of sacrifice, in comparison with which a Trojan's column or Hadrian's Mausoleum seem monuments of self advertisements.

These early promoters of dental civilization labored faithfully and ceaselessly during the first twenty-five years, their difficulties and failures suggesting new methods of practice. Then as a reward of genius, patient industry and skill, came almost within a year the material contributions of the rubber-dam, the dental engine, the cements, improved disks, the mallet, and cohesive gold.. Colleges next were endowed, literature broadened and Dentistry was enrolled among the learned professions.

All this and more was accomplished within the span of a lifetime, and a profession preeminent for scientific discoveries and mechanical invention, united in local, state and national association, with an educational center in almost every state in the union, and a literature second to none among the learned aristocracies is the rich and unspeakable legacy of our fathers to the rising generation, with which to buy up the opportunities of the present, and future; requiring on our part strength and rectitude of character, minds welltrained and stored with knowledge of the arts and sciences relating to practice, skill in the performance of all operations and constructions, and a readiness to defend and advance the honor of the profession at every point.

Confronted by this proposition the question naturally arises in the mind of every American Dentist, "Do I measure up to this standard?" "Am I equal to the emergency, or shall I, like the prodigal son, waste this great inheritance in a riotous manner?"

Leaving each one to a thorough self-examination before making