«.aJ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) V {/ A y ^ 1.0 I.I 1^ 128 |2.5 Ui 1^ 12.2 US ii£ 12.0 1.8 11.25 11.4 IIIIII.6 y] '^^> V 7: V ^ %' V ^ CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICMH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiqueit 1980 Technical Notes / Notes techniques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Physical features of this copy which may alter any of the images in the reproduction are checked below. □ Coloured covers/ Couvertures de couleur Coloured maps/ Cartes gdographiques en couleur L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exernplaire qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Certains ddfauts susceptibles de nuire d la qualit6 de la reproduction sont not6s ci-dessous. D D Coloured paqes/ Pages de couleur Coloured plates/ Planches en couleur Th< po) of fllr Th( COI or api Th( filr ins D D Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ Pages d6color6es, tachet6es ou piqu6es Tight binding (may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin)/ Reliure serr6 (peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distortion le long de la marge intdrieure) D Show through/ Transparence Pages damaged/ Pages endommagdes Me in I upi boi fol D Additional comments/ Commentaires suppl6mentaires Bibliographic Notes / Notes bibliographiques n Only edition available/ Seule Edition disponible Bound with other material/ Reli6 avec d'autres documents Cover title missing/ Le titre de couverture manque D D D Pagination incorrect/ Erreurs de pagination Pages missing/ Des pages manquent IVIaps missing/ Des cartes gdographiques manquent D D Plates missing/ Des planches manquent Additional comments/ Commentaires suppl6mentaires The images appearing here are the best quality possible considering the condition and legibility of the original copy and in keeping with the filming contract specifications. The last recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol —^> (meaning CONTINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), whichever applies. Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et tie la nettet6 de I'exemplalre film6, et en conformity avec les conditions du contrat de fllmage. Un des symboles suivants apparattra sur la der- nlAre Image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ► signifie "A SUiVRE", le symbole y signifie "FIN". The original copy was borrowed from, and filmed with, the kind consent of the following institution: Library of the Public Archives of Canada Maps or plates too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: L'exemplaire film6 fut reproduit grfice d la g6n6rosit6 de I'dtablissement prAteur suivant : La bibliothdque des Archives publiques du Canada Les cartes ou les planches trop grandes pour dtre reproduites en un seul clichd sont filmdes d partir de Tangle sup6rieure gauche, de gauche d droite et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Le diagramme suivant iiiustre la m6thode : 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 [ ANNUAL MEETING or THE Royal College of Dental Surgeons, ONTARIO. KDDRESS BY W. GEORGE BEERS, L. D. S. Reprinted from the Dominion Dental Journal, April, 1890. 5" i,'b\ ANNUAL MEETING OF THE Royal College of Dental Surgeons, OISTT-A-I^IO. ADDRESS. By W. George Beers, L.D.S. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, — When I accepted the invitation to join the boys to-night, in a ceremony which might make the mouths of the founders of Canadian dental reform water with envy, I thought at first it was to be a quiet sort of family fare- well, where one could unbend a bit, like teachers and pupils who both love football ; and yet, where one's gray hairs would perhaps entitle him to talk kindly, like a father, experienced words of caution with the warmest words of cheer. I flattered myself that the task would be light and congenial, and that the happy gradu- ates would endure me, because it was to be the very last of a long list of lectures they had survived, and because, too, they might hope to catch from one's confessions, some of the needed warnings which active practitioners have " learned in suffering to sing in song," and for which I know I would have been grateful when I first launched forth eager for the fray, to set the world on fire. You know there's nothing running to such waste as the burning passion to bestow advice. It is a perfect drug in the market of moral ethics. It is a possession with which even misers are extra- vagant. It would not be difficult then, to give our graduates the benefit of one's own mistakes, in order that they might avoid them, and to point out those faults and follies of a professional career through which most of us have had for discipline to pass. It was formerly a superstition that every child should have measles, chicken-pox, and croup, just as the belief exists to-day in some parts of the Province of Quebec that physical life is not complete without variola. In much the same way, it seems to be a heresy to deny, that a man can steer clear of reefs and rocks against which the most of voyagers strike ; but were this true, and were the beacons and signals of no avail, would not every shoal and lee-shore of life be strewed with human wrecks, and many a hope- ful heart perish in despair? There are perils of a peculiar char- acter in the practice of dentistry, and pitfalls of more than ordi- nary obscurity ; there are duties a man will specially owe to himself and his own nest and nestlings, superior to those that can possibly belong to the public, however nobly unselfish, and willing a man may be to lay down his life, if needs be, for his brethren ; there are perplexities and temptations, and there are splendid occasions to do the duty of unselfish, earnest and truthful men. But, how- ever parsimonious of self-praise, or prodigal of self-censure, the telling of all this would dispose us to be before our confreres ; we do not like to make a public exposure of our own imperfec- tions, or even successes, before the patients. And it was enough to take one's breath away to learn, at the eleventh hour, that I was to be permitted, for at least thirty minutes this evening, to be " intoxicated with the exuberance of my own verbosity," and in such a literary, legislative and univer- sity centre as this advancing city, and in presence of distinguished gentlemen, whose public life makes speechifying to them mere child's play, and who, if they talk in their sleep, do so, I am sure, with classic and Corinthian polish. However, Mr. President, with all the dangers and drawbacks before me, were I to say that I am sorry to find myself here, then like Montaigne's page, I " would not be found guilty of telling the truth." It is indeed a great personal pleasure to be allowed to add another link to the long chain of my connection with the dental movement in Ontario ; to meet face to face and hand to hand, a new detachment of earnest and leavening recruits, bound in dentistry in this Province to do, not to dream, and who seriously mean in the leg uni zeal and honesty, to do some such service for their profession, and therefore for our p^reat Dominion, as has been done for law and medicine by our University teachers, and for our trade and com- merce by our educated agriculturists and merchants. We have lately commemorated in Ontario and Quebec the events which led to our first educational efforts twenty-one years ago, and ! confess I like to look back on the coincidence, perfectly freed from any political thought, that the birth of this reform in Ontario was contemporaneous w'th that of the Dominion, and that when our statesmen were in session in Charlottetown discussing the union of the Provinces, our Ontario dentists were in session in Toronto, planning the reform and consolidation of the profession. It was a pioneer work, like that done by the first settlers of this Province along the shores of the St. Lawrence, Bay of Ouinte, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, when the rude log-hut, the }'oke of steers, a pig, a gun and an axe formed the stock-in-trade, perhaps, of the fathers of some of the gentlemen here ; and we, whose lives are cast to-day in pleasanter places, have good right to revere and respect those old-fashioned days of sturdy hearts and wooden ploughs. There are a few practitioners still in our ranks who were practising dentistry in Canada before most of us were born, and when I have heard from their lips the struggles they had to endure, as they perambulated the country with their box on their back like modern rural peddlers ; when I even recall the regular custom in Montreal when I was indentured as a student, and was notarially bound not to reveal to our rivals " the secrets " of the profession ; when we contrast those days with the present free-offering which every respectable dentist makes of his knowledge ; when we compare the past in Ontario, within the memory of confreres who are here to-night, with the success achieved in its teens by this school, with the proud affiliation with one of the leading Universities of the Dominion, giving for the first time in the dental history of the Empire, a distinctive and unsullied dental degree, I feel that the responsible stewards of this institution have not only done an enduring service to the profession, but a practical one for the State. I have had constant and active association with the profession from that important epoch, and I know the sacrifices the promoters of legislation and education had to make. I was familiar with the unreasonable opposition of well-meaning sceptics, who had no more faith that a dental Act of Incorporation would elevate dentistry in Ontario, than that a charter would avail to secure a railway to the moon. I remember the war-whoops of hate raised by a few, who condemned a principle in dentistry they unconsciously commended in medicine and law ; and who, had they been in the wilderness with Moses, would, I firmly believe, have fouj^ht against the passage of the Ten Commandments, as an unnecessary and dangerous piece of legislation. Even many who to-day loyally acknowledge the value, and aid the objects of association, then stood silent in fear. It was thought by the most moderate opponent that legislation was impracticable ; that the idea of a school was Quixotic, for " Qitis CHstodict ipsos custodes:" that it could become nothin/ better than a fickle and feeble imitation of the clap-trap system, which was then manufacturing Doctors of Dental Surgery over the border in. one session of four months. It was said that a dental school in Toronto would have to pawn its parchments to pay its way ; that it would have to hawk its degrees about the Province for sale, and, as was satirically said of the diploma of a foreign College, that it would thus " be enabled to get rid of its debt — by * Degrees.' " Those were the prophets of despair, who seem to have lineal descendants in other .spheres of our national life ; whose crest should be " the white feather ; " who have as many hands as Gyges to raise against the gods ; and who, at least, seem like men standing on their heads, to see everything the wrong way. The success we .see to-day is due to the fact that Ontario denti-stry has leaders of quiet faith and earnest courage, who have quitted themselves like men. Had our friend Dr. Willmot and his asso- ciates shaped their actions on the fear or fury of obstructionists, you, gentlemen, would have had to pick up your experience in the Province in the old imperfect way, or cross the lines to get what you could not get here. There is neither exuberance of fancy nor exaggeration of fact in these statements. The gentlemen who shouldered the responsibility of conducting this school, did not imagine that the mere readiness was sufficient professional equip- ment, or that their duty should be set to music. They had not the presumption of the son of the Vicar of Wakefield — a chip of the old block — who, you remember, went to Amsterdam to teach the Dutch English, but who found when he got there that he had forgotten to learn Dutch. Your lecturers qualified themselves to teach. You have rccci^'cd didactic instruction, in this first Dental School in Canada, equal to any you could get on this continent ; and if some features arc not as yet made as attain- able as in colleges in the United States, remember that one of those foreign schools has just passed its fiftieth year ; that others have had twenty-five, thirty and forty years of existence, as richly endowed institutions in large and populous States. And yet not one of these colleges has so far exacted anything like the high standard of matriculation, or the conditions of studentship de- manded of students in Ontario and Quebec. The D.D.S. of Canada so far represents an educational standard as to preliminary examination, only surpassed by the requirements of the Dentists' Act in England ; and if we believe that general cultivation and a liberal education is as necessary to the highest sphere of success in medicine and law, it cannot logically be denied in its application to the highest attainments in dentistry, if our teaching, our associa- tions and our literature are to expand. It is patent to us all that under the primitive system of training students, the profession pro- duced many excellent men ; some whose native genius and in- genuity " burst the bars cf invidious birth, and broke the force ot circumstance ; " but the future of the profession will be settled on a higher plane, by the preservation, or even the increase of the standard of the admission examination. No fact in connection with education in the medical, dental, law, and even many of the theological schools of the United States, seemed to a Canadian more inexplicable, than the absence, until about twelve years ago, of any sort of preliminary. To .such an extent was this neglect carried, that not only were thousands of men graduated as doctors and dentists, ignorant of the most elementary branches of an English education, but up to the last few years, diplomas were con- ferred upon men of foreign speech, who did not understand one word of the language in which the lectures were delivered. Though our American cousins have not raised the standard of the prelim- inary to that of Canada and England, we must congratulate them upon the proposed increase in the period of study ; and it will pro- bably not be deemed altogether a breach of the unpretending modesty which in some respects we feel towards the older and more richly endowed United States schools, if we recall the his- torical fact that the first movement towards the abolition of a pro- 8 vision which recojjnized five years of any sort of practice as equiv- alent to one session, was the direct result of the peremptory action of the Quebec Hoard, in cutting off from recognition two of the leading schools for too elastic an interpretation of this provision. In a measure our humble efforts in Canada, even years ago, were fairly received over the boarder, but my conviction still exists, that the American diploma of D.U.S. had no claim for recognition until the abolition of the five years' clause, and the exaction of a prelim- inary. I think what I have said may, perhaps, elevate the respect you should entertain for the degrees you have received to-night ; and it is well to remember that towards this school and the pro- fession in Canada you now have reciprocal duties to perform. Have faith in your own Canadian .school as you have in your own Province and in the Dominion, and if defects appear, do not imitate the folly of the farmer who, failing to reach the caterpillar, cut down the ancestral tree, under whose spreading boughs he had been soothed by a mother's lullaby. And if circumstances, which no man can always foresee, force you to seek foreign founts of inspira- tion, or perhaps life-work, even though the collective wi.sdom of the " Associated Dental Faculties " refu.se to recognize the plea of your parchment for professional union, generous and noble cousins, whose warm hearts and open hands have often aided our move- ment in Canada, will be the first to wi.sh you " God speed." Is it not a suggestive reflection that dentistry, as a recognized science, is the youngest of the professions, and that there are gentlemen in this room, in the prime of life, who were born before the first dental association, the first dental college, and the first dental journal ? Medicine can trace its history back to the early periods of Grecian civilization. The medical schools of Cos, Rhodes, Cyrene, and Croton date back from 400 B.C. Hippocra- tes, " the father of medicine," was 500 B.C. Law goes back to the schools of jurists in the reign of Tarquin, 448 B.C. Enthusiastic dental antiquarians, who will never be happy until they believe they have disinterred excavators and pluggers used in the Ark, try to make some bold statements of Herodotus, and passing remarks of later writers, give color to the belief that ancient Egypt was the cradle of dentistry. It was declared that gold fillings had been found in the teeth of mummies from Thebes, but it was discovered that, like other parts of the mummies, the teeth had been merely gilded. It is a fact, however, that the idea of replacing lost human teeth by substitutes of bone or sycamore wood set in gold, has been traced to Kgypt by modern discoverers in ancient sarcophagi ; and, I dare say, that some of you may have seen and handled the specimens in possession of our friend and confrere. Dr. Barrett, of Buffalo. These do not, however, sub- stantiate any claim whatever that the work was done by special- ists in dentistry, but more certainly by the ordinary gold and silversmiths, who, for instance, worked in the groat synagogue at Alexandria, and who, as in Jerusalem and other places, divided the working of metals into separate branche:;. It is easy for you to draw upon your imagination — that is what it is (or- and picture to yourself an Eastern beauty standing before the framer of a buckle or an ear-ring, and, as she perhaps smiles at his blandish- ments and blarney, discovers to the goldsmith the loss of an incisor. With instinctive ingenuity, and no doubt a lively sense of friendship to come, he offers to carve a substitute of bone to fill the gap, as he carved the buckle, and then fasten it to the adjacent teeth, as he would fit the ear-ring, by golden loops. Still, we must let our antiquarian dentists amuse themselves ; and when you remember that the Jewish Rabbins aver that the worms of the grave have no power over Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Benjamin, and David, it is not unlikely that some Chicago dentist, di.sguised as a Turk, strolling through Hebron, should excavate some ancient molars from a burrow, and believing they were those of Abraham, Jacob, and Miriam, contribute them to the attractions of the next "World's Exposition." Or perhaps, some of our Toronto graduates, when hunting deer or fishing for trout in the Laurentides, which Sir William Dawson's fossil dis- coveries verify as the oldest parts of Creation, should discover that Dental Bridge work is contemporaneous with the Eozoon Canadense, But, seriously, the progress of dentistry — especially instrumental and mechanical — within the recollection of the first students of this school, has been marvellous. Young practitioners would no more think of accepting most of the theories and methods of treatment prevalent twenty years ago, than they would adopt the vagaries and materia medica of Celsus. And yet, I fear, we go into raptures without sound reason, over the claims that many make as to the progress of the purely scientific on this continent. We cannot 10 :1|1 deny that the most scientific and profound literature in our specialty is altogether foreign to our hemisphere ; that until certain books were compiled to order, some of which are bare-faced pla- giarisms of British or German productions, American dental colleges were taught the science of dentistry from these foreign text-books. Most of our advancement has been made along mechanical lines, the mere prosthetic, and little or nothing in the investigation of those embryonic conditions which lie at the base of the predisposing causes of poorly calcified teeth. No complaint of this sort can be made as to the study of the relation of fermen- tation to caries, the fungi of the mouth, etc., so carefully investi- gated by Dr. W. D. Miller, of Berlin, Germany ; but when we reflect that the special disease of caries is increasing in all civilized countries, not merely like a transient epidemic, which we prepare to battle with until we can safely predict its disappearance, but as a physiological certainty in by far the largest proportion of healthy children of healthy parents ; when we consider the fact that pro- bably not a hundred people could be found in this city between the ages of fifteen and twenty who have escaped diseased teeth, and that the majority of children do not attain their sixth year free from this calamity, when we reflect upon this connection of caries with a period when nutrition is most active, and " decay " should be anomalous, it would seem that there is here a neglected field for scientific research. I look with ho'-or on such statements, that in one dertal office, or rather abc