tures to the medical colleges, endeavoring to have dental professorships incorporated in them; how their propositions were scornfully rejected; how they were driven to the necessity of establishing an independent school; and how the Baltimore Dental College, the first dental college ever founded, had to struggle and strive for its early existence. And thus it is. Dentistry came to be taught in separate schools and to be independent of medicine. The dental schools, however, are mere duplicates to the medical schools in anatomy, physiology, pathology, chemistry, materia medica, etc., and the dental student might study these branches as well in one as the other. As time and research extends the spheres of both professions, the necessary provisions will probably be made for M. D's., and dentists being taught and graduated by the same corps of teachers. Harvard University has the honor of having led in this direction, and has been, and will be, followed by other universities. My own judgment leads me to think that dentistry pure, will be better taught in dental colleges.

Year by year, as our standard of qualification is being raised, men of character and education are joining our ranks and are being recognized by physicians as professional equals, being called into consultation with them as occasion may require.

Let us each, therefore, feel resting upon himself individually, the responsibility to uphold the honor and maintain the dignity of our loved profession, and there will be no need of cringing and fawning to secure that honorable recognition of which we are worthy.

It was my good fortune recently to attend a meeting of a State Medical Association, and I was surprised and mortified to learn the very low average grade of education of medical students generally, and the comparative ease with which a medical diploma may be obtained.

Their State laws are very imperfect, affording no reciprocal protection. They have no examining boards, and

nothing like an Association of Faculties. Any bogus diploma will pass muster, and any ignoramus or brasscheeked pretender may legitimately go forth to practice destruction. In the great State of Georgia there seems to be no legal method to arrest the depredations of impostors and mountebanks. At the very time the Georgia State Dental Society was successfully prosecuting, in the city court of Augusta, violators of the law against the illegal practice of dentistry, a committee of physicians was running around consulting lawyers, hunting offices, and devising measures, in the futile effort to prevent an oily-tongued, jewel-bedecked and brass-mounted quack doctor, from maltreating the citizens, and reaping a rich harvest of ducats, from the hard earnings of his deluded victims. They were really powerless to do more than grit their teeth and look on with smothered curses.

But I merely touch on these educational matters, knowing that we are to enjoy a rich intellectual repast, in some of the papers to be offered on them. Other matters looking to our higher advancement, and suggesting them selves for consideration and action, might be mentioned: the appointment of dentists to the Army and Navy, and on the National Board of Health, our share in Congressional appropriations for scientific research, the approaching International Medical Congress, &c. But I have done.

Gentlemen, has not Dentistry, with her many inventions, valuable discoveries, and signal triumphs, fairly earned for herself a niche amongst the sciences, and has she not before her a future of glorious possibilities?

Only two Sundays ago, I heard for the first time in my life, specific and honorable mention made in a public address, of dentistry as a distinct profession, with no allusion to, or connection with medicine. An eloquent minister of the gospel, in glowing and complimentary terms, referred to it as a new science, which had taken its place among the highest and most important professions of the age.

I thank you for your courteous attention.

Dr. W. H. Morgan, chairman of the Committee on Arrangements, announced that daily sessions would be held from 9:30 to 12:30, and 2:30 to 5:30. Friday being set apart for clinics.

The association then proceeded to the regular order of business.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON DENTAL ASSOCIATION.

Committee: Drs. B. H. Catching, Atlanta, Ga.; M. C. Marshall, Little Rock, Ark.; G. W. McElhaney, Columbus, Ga.; J. B. Patrick, Charleston, S. C.; W. D. Dunlap, Selma, Ala.; F. J. S. Gorgas, Baltimore, Md.

Dr. B. H. Catching, chairman of the committee, read a paper entitled, "Medical Education for Dentists and Dental Education for Physicians." (Will appear later.)

Other papers on the same subject were deferred to the next session.

The Executive Committee recommended the following applicants for membership:

Drs. J. Crawford, Nashville, Tenn.; G. Chisholm, Columbus, Miss.; G. S. Staples, Sherman, Texas; J. M. Lunquest, Birmingham, Ala.; L. D. Wright, Dixon Station, Tenn.; H. W. Morgan, Nashville, Tenn.; W. D. Taylor, Brownsville, Tenn.; H. H. Barr, Oxford, Ala.; J. H. Prewitt, Madisonville, Ky.; G. Eubank, Birminghamı, Ala.; J. S. Franklin, Nashville, Tenn.

On motion, the rules were suspended, and no objections being made, the Secretary was instructed to cast the ballot. The election being unanimous, the newly elected members were invited to sign the Constitution and pay their dues.

On motion, adjourned to 2:30 P. M.

TUESDAY, July 27.

FIRST DAY-SECOND SESSION.

Called to order at 3 P. M., the President in the chair.
The Executive Committee announced the following

applicants for membership:

Drs. D. R. Stubblefield, Nashville, Tenn.; R. B. Adair, Gainesville, Ga.; I. B. McDonald, Shelbyville, Tenn., who were duly elected.

DENTAL EDUCATION.

A second paper bearing this title, by Dr. W. D. Dunlap, of Selma, Ala., was read by Dr. B. H. Teague, of Aiken, S. C. Also a third, by Dr. M. C. Marshall, of Little Rock, Ark.

The subject was then declared open for discussion.

Dr. J. J. R. Patrick, of Belleville, Ill., said: This is a stupendous subject. It is like the harp of a thousand strings: the more you play with it the more music you get out of it. In every society in the United States this question constantly arises. The point most universally, but in my opinion most unnecessarily agitated, is whether or not dentistry is a specialty of medicine. Any attempt to answer this constantly recurring question necessitates a retrospective view, for our profession, like everything else in this wide world, has its history.

If we make medicine the standpoint, it is necessary to know upon what it stands; what the degree of M. D. is supposed to represent. It represents a knowledge of physiology, anatomy, pathology, chemistry, botany, geology— all the sciences; that's what medicine represents. The wisest man of his tribe was the "medicine man."

It is not so very long since the time when any man who devoted himself to any one branch of the healing art was considered a quack by the general practitioner. If he treated only the ear, or the eye, or the teeth, he was a quack; no matter what his education, his skill, his talents, he was a backslider of a specialist. Now there are many schools of medicine-the allopathic, the homopathic, the electic, the electric, and all give the same degree of M. D. It is not a question of schools; they are all willing, all proud, to become the godfather or godmother of dentistry.

What was medicine up to the time of John Hunter? From the time of the Greek and the Roman empires not

one step in advance was made. Medical works, up to the fourteenth century, were all compilations from Greek and Roman authorities. Esculapius claimed to have invented a forcep for the extraction of a tooth, but the ancients knew little or nothing of anatomy or physiology.

Thomas Knox, of Edinburg, was the first anatomist, and that is as late as 1828. The anatomist was anathemaNo believer in a literal resurrection could santion

the cutting up of the body of a human being.

John Hunter was the first one who described the fœtal circulation; nothing was known of the diseases of women and children before John Hunter; no one had even described the human jaw, the human teeth. Physiology was nothing at all, until John Hunter made it; it was only a wild theory. And yet he was not a surgeon; he was a clumsy operator. He was a comparative anatomist, but he was not an able man. He was but a wild young man when he went into his brother's office. He taught us that the different preparations of mercury would destroy insect life. [Time up.]

Dr. Wm. H. Morgan: Much that has been said I can indorse most heartily. Dentistry undoubtedly has a history, but some erroneous statements have been made. It was in 1836 (and not in 1840 as stated in one of the papers read) that the first dental association was formed, and it was not the American Dental Association as stated, but the old American Society Dental Surgeons. Up to that time there were no sources for a dental education. When I began to study dentistry, the good old gentleman who undertook my education, told me there were but two authors on the subject: Bell and Harris. The old American Journal and Library of Dental Science, was the first fruits of that society. Realizing the inefficiency of office-teaching, that society soon began to discuss the propriety of establishing a school where dentistry could be properly taught. But very few dentists would receive dental students. One offered to qualify them for $300 in the city, or from $600 to $900 in