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senator and your representatives are thus and so. Write a letter to each senator and to each of your members in the House telling them to support this measure. Enclosed find a postal card. Advise the legislative committee on it that you have done so. The time to do it is now." Inside of seventy-two hours the legislative committee had 1200 of those cards back from members reporting that they had complied with the request. The legislative committee went to Springfield, and were met there by a number of members of the legislature who said "For Heaven's sake, pull off your dogs. We will give you anything you want, but don't send us any more letters, because we don't want to spend our time in answering them." And our bill past (Laughter).

If there is a legislative committee in each component society, and every component society has a scheme of its own, it is clear that nothing worth while would be accomplished. I thank you. (Applause).

DR. BLACK: I was very glad that Dr. Mills presented the proposition of the management and encouragement of component societies, as I will have little to say on that subject. When we reorganized the Illinois State Dental Society in 1904, we jumped our membership in one year from 276 to 1250 and since then it has gradually increased until this year our Society has paid the dues of more than 1750 members into this Association. I would like to impress the fact especially upon those men who come from states which have recently organized, or are now considering the organization of their societies on this plan, that they have not before them a perfectly simple and easy problem, to keep all of these component organizations going along in nice and harmonious fashion. We have today 28 component societies in the State of Illinois. We organized the State into 30 districts in 1904, and the number has now been reduced by the

consolidation of societies in places where that seemed best, but practically we have maintained now, during a period of ten years, the component organizations as formed in 1904.

The dues of our society were $5 before we reorganized. We proposed to drop them to $2, in order to get in the large membership which we wanted. Many members of the Society were very skep. tical as to the future financial problems of our Society, but the result has been the same as it has been with every other society that has been reorganized, that once we were well organized, there was no trouble to get all the money we needed for every legitimate problem that was presented to our Society. There has been no time from that day to this when our Society has been seriously in need of funds; in fact, for some years we have had more than $5,000 out at interest, aside from paying the regular expenses of our Society.

Dr. Koch and Dr. Mills have spoken of some of the possibilities of such an organization. There is almost no limit. The basis, however, of all of the possibilities under any form of organization is that one thing Dr. Mills referred to, and that is, the establishment of a proper feeling of good fellowship among the men in each community thruout the state. When that is once done, there is absolutely no trouble to handle any other proper problem presented. In conclusion I want to say that I would not have you think from what was stated in my paper, that I think it advisable for a society to take up any one of these propositions which has for its main object the encouragement and development of every individual member of that society, to the exclusion of the present plans of conducting society programs.

The one thing which should be kept uppermost in the minds of the men in charge of the programs, is to nurse along the idea of individual study at every opportunity which presents, so that there

will be a gradual development to the end that more and more members will take up study problems. Committees which undertake this type of work expect to meet with a good deal of discouragement because of the difficulties involved, and they must feel encouraged

if they are able to carry along problems of this kind and make any reasonable progress with them, because there is no more difficult proposition for the dental society, and yet to my mind none more important. I thank you very much. (Applause.)

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THE THOMAS W. EVANS MUSEUM AND DENTAL INSTITUTE, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

THE RESEARCH DEPARTMENT.

CONDUCTED BY THE

SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION AND RESEARCH COMMISSION

OF THE

NATIONAL DENTAL ASSOCIATION.

All Communications for this Department Should be Addrest to the Chairman,
Weston A. Price, M. S., D. D. S., 10406 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio.

THE THOMAS W. EVANS MUSEUM AND DENTAL

INSTITUTE.

Weston A. Price, M. S., D. D. S.

T

HERE is nothing more vital to the interest of humanity than, what, for a better term, we are pleased to call a psychological moment. It is the crystalization of ideas into ideals and the putting into practical forms, to greatly influence and benefit humanity, those elements that, at one time, were simply visions in the mind of some individual or individuals. It is exceedingly significant and instructive that many great discoveries and inventions are made by different individuals within a few hours or weeks of each other, and yet no one knew of the other's work. Each, however, had the foundation of facts growing out of previous events and studies made by others and the forwarding step of the late Dr. Thomas W. Evans was just such a logical sequence.

The struggle of the ages has been for health and happiness and the last few decades have contributed more toward a consummation of that zealous search

This

than all the centuries preceding. is illustrated by the fact that the average span of human life today, where civilization is most advanced, is approximately fifty years, as against periods ranging from fifteen to thirty for the centuries preceding. One factor is chiefly responsible for this great change, namely, the establishment of truth and the elimination of error from the minds of men. Dr. Vaughan, President of the American Medical Association, states that the present life rate can be very considerably extended. He says: "In the middle ages the average life was less than twenty years. Now it is quite fifty years and it might easily be increased by fifteen years, if the people as a whole make strict application of the facts already demonstrated by studies in preventative medicine. Not only has life been lengthened by the efficiency of the individual but it has been multiplied,

and there seems to be no limit to the work that is possible in this direction."

The students, who are specializing by study in various branches of human welfare, seem, in the last few years, to come out from the dark fields of their exploration on to heights to which they have climbed thru their special researches, and each seems to have made the discovery that the oral cavity, with its multitude of direct and indirect relations to our bodily economy, is in a small or large part responsible for the embarrassments that are coming to the human unit from his particular viewpoint. Within a decade or two a score of challenges have been thrown to the guardians of the organs and tissues of the mouth, few of which can be answered as yet but there is every reason to believe they will be answered after adequate and competent investigation shall have been made.

It is not an accident that there should have been given to humanity and the dental profession the Thomas W. Evans Museum and Dental Institute for teaching and research. It is the logical sequence to mental and moral development as they relate to the great problems of human health and happiness, and it is only an index to other great unfoldings that will come from the hearts of the men serving in the healing professions and those in the laity equally devoted to the betterment of humanity. There is little doubt that the next decade or two will see many such munificent gifts to the dental profession and humanity as the splendid Thomas W. Evans Museum and Dental Institute for research and the Forsyth Dental Infirmary for children. These expressions of the unfolding of the hu

man heart are only exceeded in significance by the large number of individual gifts, entailing as they do a real personal sacrifice, which are being given daily by the members of the dental profession from all over this country. They are giving until it hurts for the support of dental researches, because they are inspired by the same motive and the same confidence, namely, the love of truth and its reconstructing power. The question for the members of the dental profession to ask themselves, as they look upon this splendid institution, is "Am I a part of this great psychological moment?"

The members of the Scientific Foundation and Research Commission of the National Dental Association unite in the chorus of joy and appreciation that this splendid building has been made a reality, and we congratulate the profession that it has such a leader as Dr. Kirk, who, had he not had a vision and been a part of this great psychological moment, could not have put in so perfect concrete form this superb expression of human progress.

The problem of our profession is not only the securing of financial endowments but is also the development of men with vision-not visionary menmen who can see the logical sequence that must follow a series of facts. Let us hope that a great power may be given this institution to build men with a vision. It is only by the combination of these two qualities that the superhuman man can be achieved. That man, who thereby becoming a co-creater with God in the building of a civilization that has established health and happiness, is both divine and human, for truth is God and God is truth.

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