The Newtown bee., 1908-05-29
The NeWtown Bee
 Newtown, Friday. May %, 1908
TOWN TOPICS.
WONDERFUL PROGRESS IN A
 LEADING PROFESSION.
PAINLESS DENTISTRY AN AS
 2 SURED FACT.

sURED FACT.
 The cavemen doubtless extracted those fangs of their suffering brethren that began to decay when they ceased to crunch their prandial bones; lead filings have been found in the teeth of Egyptian mummies, and prosthetle dentistry is two centuries old Never theless, it is within the last l5 or 20 years that the art of dentistry has been brought nearer to perfection than in all it's previous history within two or three years that many of the most distressing dental operations have been rendered painless, and within a few months that the most highly improved method of filling the teeth has come into us',
 There, are men and women still live ing who Aemember when the practic- of dentistry, outside of the populous centers, was confined to the pulling of teeth, the dentist being primarily the village blacksmith or tinker, whose fitness for the lesser function was measured by the strength of his wrist in operating the fearsome turnkey in the patients mouth. Few men whose talents would have qualified them for success in the learned professions were, at that time, attracted to dentistry, even in the larger cities; whereas the intellectual equipment of the up-to- date dentist to-day is not less than is required in any other branch of sur gery.
 Although Fauchard, known as the father of dentistry" who fiourished some 200 years ago, was Frenchman, and his foremost contemporaries and successors for another century were Frenchmen, America has made all the modern improvements in the dental art. American dentists have not only in- vented the principal mechanical de- vices that are now in use among skilled practitioners throughout the world, but they have made the ana tomical researches that have resulted in painless processes and prosthetic ac. complishments deemed impossible a generation ago. Indeed, America may be said to have made dentistry science all her oWn-with no outside assistance worth mentioning. German dentists have added to the knowledge of their American confreres certain minor chemical discoveries. but no other country has done aught else than copy American methods.
 , The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table maintained his preference for the man with the gallery of family portraits as agalnst the one with the twenty-five daguerreotype," circumstance with which the dentistry of the period may have had something to do, from the view point of that fastidious critic. Elderly people in the mid-century photographs almost invariably look from their somber frames with shrunk-, en cheeks or puckered lips, melan- choly condition, due to the Nloss of teeth faithfully depicted by Monsieur Daguerre s wonderful inventions. since the man or woman who was compelled to perpetuate his or her features for posterity through the twenty-five cent medium rather than the oil painting was likewise more often than not un- able to afford the services of profess sional dentist, or else believed dental prosthesis to be impractcable, or its encouragement frivolous. .....
 Of course the gentlemen and the la dies in the galleries of family portraits to which Dr Holmes alluded may. or may not, have been fitted with artifi- cial teeth that preserved the contour of their cheeks and lips in old age, since it was in the power of the artist to rectify any faclal defects; but those of his subjects whose features had been thus artfully improved had under gone actual and acute suffering in the process at the hands of the dentists of those days. '- /
 Dr Dow R. Beebe, of l14 Meigs Building, Bridgeport, Conn.,, who IS probably the most widely known den tist in this state, has made, for years, a speciality of painless dentistry and to-day almost any of the ordinary den- tai operations may be performed with nothing more than slight discomfort to the patient and he makes the ex- traction of tooth, or the extirpation of a live nerve, by his method absolute ly painless. <
 To the dentist is now often commit ted the setting of broken jaws, since he is more familiar with the anatomy of the lower part of the skull than is the average surgeon; and specialists in dentistry are treating with almost un- varying success, children who come in- to the world with clef palates and hare lips. Dentists also move irregular and misplaced teeth, expanding the roof, of the mouth and the "dental arch, " to permit the teeth to align themselves naturally. The same operation is also performed to improve the contour of the face, and to broaden the nasal chambers for the purpose of increasing breathing capacity.
 T. no other direction, however, has presthetic dentistry made such pro- gress as what is known as 'crown and bridge york;" by means of which be- nevolent invention or series of inven- tions, hundreds of men and women who had previously S,aven up hope of ever again being able to partake of food without discomfort have already been enabled to renew natural mastication. In this branch of the profession the dentists of to-day are exhibiting ex- traordinary mechanical talent, and many are the patients that rise up = AL a ax>a..at;,,o. aLai,s t1 aou thar,o