Stomatology in general practice : a textbook of diseases of the teeth and mouth for students and practitioners / by H.P. Pickerill.

  • Pickerill, H. P. (Henry Percy), 1879-1956.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Stomatology in general practice : a textbook of diseases of the teeth and mouth for students and practitioners / by H.P. Pickerill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Poteleret, Surgeon-in-chief to His Majesty’s Ships, who had great experience in diseases of the mouth’. The great John Hunter paid a considerable amount of attention to the anatomy, pathology, and surgery of the teeth. His two books—The Natural History of the Human Teeth (1771) and Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Teeth (1778)—placed the subjects for the first time in England upon a rational and scientific basis. Hunter was a great exponent of the operation of implantation and transplanta- tion of teeth, and strangely enough, although he knew naught of bacteria, insisted upon the necessity of boiling the tooth which was to be used. Despite this, however, the operation fell into disrepute owing to the cases of syphilis which were reported to have been thereby transmitted. Thomas Berdmore, dental surgeon to George III, and who was contemporaneous with Hunter, recognized the necessity of medical students knowing something concerning the diseases and surgery of the teeth, and so held classes for that purpose, as also did Fox, a surgeon on the staff of Guy’s Hospital at the beginning of the last century. Thus we have briefly traced the origin and course of ‘ Stomatology ’ from the earliest records down to within measurable distance of the present time. We have seen that all those whose names are inseparably connected with the history of general medicine have also materially assisted in the growth and development of this special subject, and all that we know we owe to the gradual but persistent accumulation of facts and data by these and such-like men.