THE DENTAL COSMOS

A MONTHLY RECORD OF DENTAL SCIENCE.
Devoted to the Interests of the Profession.

EDWARD C. KIRK, D.D.S., Sc.D., LL.D., Editor.

L. PIERCE ANTHONY, D.D.S., Associate Editor.

PUBLISHED BY THE S. S. WHITE DENTAL MFG. CO., PHILADELPHIA, PA.

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PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST 1918.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

The Status Praesens.

WE publish in this issue at page 733 the text of the Act of Congress reorganizing the Navy Dental Corps, reconstituting its grades with their respective pay and allowances, and establishing its status with respect to the Medical Corps of the Navy. With slight amendment the present law is the enactment of the bill which was introduced in the Senate by Senator Tillman and in the House by Representative Dyer. Its outstanding feature is its official recognition of the principle of equality of status within the respective grades of dental and medical service, the same principle which characterized the Act of Congress of October 6, 1917, with respect to army dental service. The dental profession is again to be congratulated upon the achievement of this epochmaking step in the history of its progress-epoch-making in the

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sense that our national Government has set the seal of its official approval on the principle that dentistry is within its sphere entitled to the same recognition that it accords to all other departments of the science and art of healing. As we noted in our issue for April of this year in connection with the enactment of the present navy dental law, the Government recognition thus finally attained, is the outcome of upward of sixty years of more or less continuous effort upon the part of the dental profession to secure a proper understanding and adequate recognition of its inherent right to a place commensurate with its importance among the specialties of the healing art. The principle involved might have been established earlier had this legislative effort not had its course beset from time to time with the ambitious interference of those who held their personal interests as paramount to the professional welfare. More is yet to be accomplished before the status of the dental surgeon, both in the army and the navy, and the full efficiency of their service to the defensive forces of the nation, can be practically realized.

The present law, while it equalizes the status of dental surgeons and surgeons within a defined classification, limits the grades assigned to the dental surgeon and retains dentistry as a department under medical control. The future legislative program should aim at establishing additional grades in the dental corps to equalize it with the medical and other staff corps, and especially at the increase in the ratio of dental officers to such an extent that dental treatment will be universal and complete for the personnel of the Navy and Marine Corps; and ultimate separation of the dental corps in both army and navy from direct jurisdiction by the medical corps. These are objectives to be achieved in the future as growth and maturity in dentistry and in its service to the military arm justify their attainment. Recognition is sure to follow as the justification of service honestly and adequately rendered; what we have already gained is evidence of the truth of that assertion.

The exigencies created by the present war conditions have created the golden opportunity for dentistry to demonstrate the value of its service, and to its everlasting credit be it said, dentistry is responding promptly, loyally, and efficiently. Despite the wholly inadequate allotment of dental surgeons to the army and

navy personnel and the corresponding limitations to a complete dental treatment of those called to the nation's defense, the Army and Navy Dental Surgeons corps have rendered a splendid service and one of inestimable value and importance not only in relieving the many disabilities arising from defective teeth and mouth conditions; but what is more important though not by any means so obvious, the Dental Surgeons Corps has done its full share in maintaining the high standard of physical welfare of our troops, by eliminating, in so far as it has been physically possible to do so, infected mouth conditions which are the source of a long list of bodily ills.

The insufficiency of the present ratio of dental surgeons allotted to the army and navy personnel is self-evident. Recommendation by the dental committee of the Council of National Defense for a larger ratio of dental surgeons was made soon after the United States entered the war, and that the need for a larger corps is a real one in order that complete dental care may be available for the whole army and navy is evidenced by the emphasis placed upon the need of a larger dental corps by Representative Dyer in his argument in favor of the bill recently passed reorganizing the Navy Dental Corps. The most striking and practical evidence of the need for more thorough dental treatment for the army and navy personnel, and incidentally an equally striking example of the loyalty and enthusiastic support which the dental profession has been and is contributing to the winning of the war, is the magnificent and unselfish work being carried on by the Preparedness League of American Dentists. Through the intuition, personal enthusiasm, and devotion of Dr. J. W. Beach of Buffalo, the great possibilities of the service which civilian dentists could render in the preparation of recruits for military duty were clearly foreseen, and an organization with that object in view was started, at first in a modest way, in the early days of the war. A general appeal for volunteers followed, and so enthusiastic was the response that the largest organization in the history of American dentistry sprang into existence in a few brief months. Today the more or less incomplete returns show a record of upward of a half million dental operations performed by members of the League gratuitously for recruits entering the service. And the work is still going on in an increasing ratio.

Dentistry has in times past been subjected to criticism, justly or unjustly as the case may be, for its lack of willingness to render a public professional service without adequate compensation. Whatever may have been the case in the past, the practical evidence of the patriotic altruism of dentistry in the present world conflict is an indisputable refutation of that type of criticism now and for the future. The spirit in which the service is rendered is equally beyond criticism, for it is given not in the hope of reward in any material sense, but as the recognition of an opportunity to demonstrate the importance and value of our ministrations in conserving the health of those engaged in the national defense, and equally its importance to the health of the nation itself.

The events of our era are making history at a rapid rate. At no time in the past has dentistry developed so rapidly or been accorded in such large degree distinct recognition as one of the essentials of public health. Opportunity has knocked at her door and found her waiting; and, facing the future with a reasonable conservatism but with an abiding faith in the possibilities of her humanitarian service, dentistry is confidently approaching the fulfilment of the prophecy of Mayo by preparing to "take the next great step in preventive medicine"-toward the consummation of which all of her energies are now directed.

PERISCOPE

Spacing Between Natural and Artificial Teeth. When spaces between teeth are desirable, let the spaces be between the artificial teeth rather than between artificial and nat

ural ones. A group of porcelain teeth set closely together and separated by a space from an adjoining natural one would be apt to exaggerate and draw attention to those small differences in appearance between natural tissues and substitutes, differences which are more or less unavoidable. And it is better to have contiguous natural and artificial

teeth arranged in correct approximal contact for two additional reasons, one being directly functional in protecting the gum and preventing the impacting of food, and the other being indirectly functional, inasmuch as the steadiness and retention of a denture is considerably increased by exact approximal contact between natural teeth and substitutes, which contact should be carefully preserved when adjusting and fitting the finished case in the mouth.-D. MACKINTOSH SHAW, Dental Record.