venience, his purse, as relation is had with his pupils, I must hold as one not yet covered wholly with the garments of his office. 2. The other side.-A student proposing to offer himself to a community as an almoner of great natural laws having in them the meaning of good or of evil, according as intelligence or ignorance handles them, is wholly recreant to the responsibility to be assumed where he fails to understand that his duty is to learn the duties of his office. The Dean of the Faculty of the Philadelphia Dental College knows its members. There is not a man among the professors or demonstrators but who is imbued with love for the work that engages him. There is not a man but that labors with a determination to empty the budget of his acquirements into the budget you are here to make up. There is not a man but whose fingers will tingle with pleasure when he takes up the pen to sign your diploma. BUT!-your side! Your side of the meaning of this grand and sacred purpose is to be enacted, is to be sealed in labor, in untiring labor; in thought, in exhaustive thought; in speculation, in wide speculation, before the lines are developed upon which it is alone possible that your professional names may be written; lines that are never straight, but as the work of the student makes them straight; lines that, where crooked, even if written over with ink of golden lustre, read never but irregular, to a community that looks upon them. A crooked man, try and strain as he will, cannot erect himself so as to deceive in his lack of straightness. As Dean of the Faculty, I am directed by the power in which this office exists to come this day to so full and so absolutely a complete understanding with the class that cause of complaint or disappointment may not follow with the coming spring. 1. It is the determination of the faculty to recommend to the Board of Trustees for the degree of the college, such members of the class only as by work, by serious attention to studies, and by acquirements, qualify themselves, according to the intentions of the Legislature, to merit the recommendation confided to the judgment and conscience of the faculty by the law. Wherever dentistry is known, the graduates of the Philadelphia Collegewith a few unhappy exceptions—have ranked, and do rank so high that on the benches in front of me are gentlemen influenced by this dignity to visit us from almost every section of the globe. Pride has come to rank itself side by side with conscience. The Board of Trustees, the faculty, the students, even our very worthy janitor, all have grown so proud, aye, vain of the Philadelphia College, that we want it, and its, to outrank everything and everybody. I must just here, gentlemen, be allowed to interpolate an incident. The other day "Our William” said to me: "On me word, Mr. Dean, I believe this fall class of ours knows more already than the men we generally graduate; why, sir, the boys know everything. They talk grammar and Latin, and analysis, and tumors, and typhoid fever, and grinding teeth, and amalgam, and cohesive gold, and nitrous oxide, and Dorr forceps, and all kinds of things about A B and B C and C D' and matters like that, and the next thing I expect to hear in the laboratory is the Choctaw language." William is an observer, gentlemen. The people of all communities are observers. Every professional man has a measure, and every non-professional man carries a measuring tape. It is worth remembering what it is that has impressed William. What it is is that same thing which will put on the stretch every measuring tape that shall be brought to bear on you, go where you will and meet whom you shall. When I give you to understand what the faculty requires of the matriculate, I place before you simply the fulfillment of a task, to which the terms of our contract mutually obligate us. You must be dentists, says to us the Legislature, says to us the Board of Trustees, or you must go back to your homes without a degree. The matter is one of work. I am sorry that I cannot add that it is to be one of time. American life is fast. Babies, of a year old, are hurried into breeches. Boys marry and become fathers before their beard is grown. A tailor stretches out his legs and stands up a doctor. A student rushes into the front door of a college and scarcely stops to look fully around before snatching a diploma and getting off over the back lot—if, perchance, he doesn't take a mid-way window. Gentlemen, fortunately we have connected with the Philadelphia College no back lot; the windows are too high to jump from safely, and not a single diploma is lying around loose. On Let us come back to the contrast. your entering the room this afternoon a roster concerning lectures, clinics, dispensary services, hospital and class studies was handed each of you. This card is the finger post leading to graduation. First and prominent are the dental dispensary clinics. I speak from the necessity of the service when I give you to understand that you are expected to so cultivate yourselves in practical dentistry that at the proper time you will be found able to demonstrate on the living mouth an ability to treat cases precisely as is found required in that private practice to which you aspire. To secure the votes of the professors of this department the demand will be for treatment of twelve cavities as a test case, these cavities to embrace the complications associated with operative dental practice. Besides this, it is required of you that a depositing denture be made for the museum, and, in addition, that you take such a mouth as may be placed in your charge, where artificial teeth are required, and that you prepare such mouth for such teeth, and later, that you make and insert the latter to the satisfaction of those whose duty constitutes them judges of the perform ance. The means to the above ends are at your command (as the roster shows you) from 8 to 12 and from 2 to 4 every day, not counting lectures and demonstrations connected with the department, which are as continuous as it is possible to have them. Professor Dorr, Dr. Gilbert and Dr. Archer are in the laboratory and operating rooms from morning until night. I must be allowed to prt in the remark just here that the work of these gentlemen is exhausting to the last degree, and ask you not to forget that it is impossible for a man to be in two places at the same time. Duplicative of these instructions are the lectures and demonstrations by Prof. Guilford. A course of lectures on operative and mechanical dentistry presents before the mind of the learner the subject in its entirety. What dentistry is in all its ramifications will be told you by Prof. Guilford. How dentistry is done in all its details will be shown you by Prof. Dorr. Dentistry is both an art and a science. Teeth require medical treatment, as do other diseased organs of the human body. The field is broad-it is one filled with interest. In dental pathology and therapeutics you have the most abused and best loved self-sacrificer in the dental profession; an egg full of meat having a shell of india rubber, it will squeeze its contents out of itself and into you as surely as you afford it the chance, Prof. Flagg. Clinical, diadactic, medico-therapeutic teaching! What is there left? Only that is expected of you which is given into your keeping, and which is given with a measure that only a part will be asked or expected in return. This part is, however, the measure of what is known as the minimum number in examination; it will be exacted with the pertinacity with which a Shylock claims his pound of flesh. Principles underlie practice, and are as necessary to its support as is gravitation to the holding of the globe in place. I take it on myself to say that in no medical college in this country is this matter more fully discussed and enquired into. In mineralogy, in metalurgy, in all the complexities of the chemical composition of mortals and of the earth, we have in the school a chemist and a teacher of chemistry whose skill turns mystery into simplicity. Happy the student, the Dean wishes he could turn himself into one, whose opportunities bring him to the feet of so great a lover of the grand science as Prof. Howell. From a cell comes a cell; end from beginning; beginning from end. Cosmos in a molecule. Toying with a particle of mud, anon striding over Olympus trying for the girth of Jupiter. Discussing with Thales the oneness of the Almighty God, and the omnipotent nature of water. Seeing in flame, with Heraclitus, the origin and sustenance of life. Fanning ourselves with air, and, with Anaximines, knowing this to be vital. Analyzing with Anax oras. done and being done by a teacher who is valued in proportion as he is known. I desire thus publicly to express appreciation of what is accomplished for the bènefit of the class by Dr. Cryer. Neither, in my allusion to the workers, am I willing to overlook my special and particular confidant, the Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. Who values others is commonly found vain enough to imagine the existence of some trifle of regard in return. I do not overstate the thing when I say that my confidant has been excited to the highest pitch of interest by the profound attention given to what he has had to say to the attendants on the fall course, and by what has been shown him in way of result. It is by his desire, I add, that he wants it felt and understood that what is in him to give is at the class' command, in season and out of season. It is an aphorism that old heads are not to be put on young shoulders. A word to the young hearts. The months of college life roll by rapidly, never to return. Be influenced. As lost opportunities stare you in the face, have much to stare back with. There is another familiar saying "Oh, that I could know when I was young or do when I am old.” But time does not turn around and come back to us. A man cannot do when he is old. But can he not know when he is young? Well, at any rate, he has ears with which to hear; ears which, as the meaning of the present occasion is concerned, must hear; or, if remaining persistently closed, must bring as a result, mortification to self, and grief to the hearts of the home friends. Happily, the faculty has the September experience with which to replace a possible dark picture. I possible dark picture. Speaking as an With Plato taking the mind apart. Finding with Locke a tabula rosa. Discovering soul. Losing ourselves in a study which has made many a mortal quite forget that flesh is nourished through means implying butchers' and bakers' bills. I am sure, gentlemen, that none of the hours will ever be forgotten which you are to spend with Prof. Stellwagen. I am not to overlook the untiring work individual of the faculty, I am fully convinced that if our mutual interest and industry are maintained, the first day of next March will see gathered on the stage of the Academy of Music the most learned graduates from this college who have ever received the ovation of proud and happy relatives. metals. Sideraphthite is a similar "silver" metal, and is composed of sixty-five parts of iron, twenty-three of nickel, four of tungsten, five of aluminum and five of copper. These alloys are capable of re tacked by organic acids, and are only slightly attacked by inorganic acids. There seems, gentlemen, little left to say. Remember! remember in the mord-sisting hydrosulphuric acid, are not ating! remember at mid-day! remember at night! Remember there is a needed preparation for a coming spring. Remember there is a life-work which the immediate future before you, as studies are concerned, is to render pleasurable or painful. Two of the best lines that I have met with in my life reading are as follows. I think a memory of them may profitably be carried home, and that the words may wisely be transferred into a note book that is often to meet the eye: "That you are happy, owe to God; A thought conveys the same idea in prose: "Men are not to bite their hands, and afterward blame their teeth for the hurt.” The lecture occupied over an hour in its delivery. NEW SERVICEABLE METALLIC ALLOYS. Three new metallic alloys have been recently introduced, which seem fitted to serve as substitutes for bronze, imitation gold and imitation silver. Delta, a bronze made by Mr. Alexander Dick, of London, is a compound of iron, zinc and copper, the proportions of the ingredients being varied according to the color it is sought to obtain, and has the advantages of extraordinary tenacity and flexibility. It can be beaten and forged, and drawn when cold, takes a perfect polish, and, exposed to the air, is less liable to tarnish than brass. Aphthite is a "gold" which does not change, and is composed of eight hundred parts of copper, twenty-five of platinum, and ten of tungsten. shade of color may be changed by varying the proportions of its constituent Its THE PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE OF DENTAL SURGERY. The Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery opened its regular winter session. October 1st with a short Introductory from Prof. C. N. Peirce. The class appeared larger than is usual at the initiatory exer cises. The address, which was of a general introductory character, was listened to with attention, and if the students will but heed the admonitions contained therein they can but be benefited. After a few preliminary remarks, the Professor told them that an education in den In tistry was what most concerned them at this time, and the requisites for acquiring this are such as are necessary to the ac quisition of a knowledge of any other occupation or specialty, viz., intelligent industry and devotion to the purpose. our earliest education he said we are trained to acquire those little arts which are helpful in maintaining the economy of the household. of the household. Following this are the efforts to stimulate a craving for a knowledge of the unknowable, and to arouse or excite a curiosity which grows stronger with the revelation of each successive mystery. It is the same to-day in every department of science; the stimulus to activity is the desire for that which is hidden, with strength and encouragement accompanying each successive acquisition. In this fact you recognize and appreciate the natural activity of the human mind; indeed, it is rarely at rest; but for its healthy and profitable growth, it must have something to work upon, and while it must be the care of your teachers to supply the food which it needs at this particular time, it will be yours to remember and appropriate. Strength of memory depends on attention, and attention upon interest. If you have not this, so as to pursue your studies with freshness and vigor, you will make but little progress. The science of dentistry, like that of general medicine, is the theory of disease and of remedies. Disease is a deflection from the line of health, and the first requisite in its proper treatment is an intimate and extensive acquaintance with the normal condition of the organs, their tissues and functions, the treatment of which is embraced in the practice of this special science. For this purpose you have entered an institution which has passed beyond its embryonic condition, and the opportunities which it will offer you are those of which many older ones in the profession have sadly felt the need. These privileges will make you, if your time be judiciously occupied, successful rivals for the confidence and patronage of the public; remember, though, that an earnestness of purpose, a healthful enthusiasm, a hope and faith in the near future, are all important factors in stimulating your progress towards this happy result. The present day is propitious for study and professional life. During no time in the past has our occupation had more friends or a wider field, at no time has the dentist had a better opportunity for satisfactory compensation, and now, while society at large is offering better remuneration for the labor of the skilled artisan, in return a more liberal education and greater proficiency are demanded. As time, growth and development differentiate and specialize animals and plants, so do they institutions and occupations, and the skill and success which is so marked in our profession are largely due to this specializing process. The establishment of schools in which this branch of the healing art is the prominent and pre vailing feature, all of the instruction therein given being either directly or collaterally related thereto, has been an important step towards attaining proficiency in the profession. Following the above was given a description of the oval cavity, with its varied structures and their functions, as well as the pathological complications to which these were liable. In speaking of knowledge essential to a scientific dentist, the importance of dental anatomy and dental histology were fully recognized. The average dentist of the past knew little or nothing of the presence of living matter in a tooth, nor of the recuperative power which it was capable of exerting. The profession at large remained for many years apparently in contented ignorance of the constitution and nature of the tissues upon which they daily worked, but this state of things is rapidly passing away. Science in dentistry is becoming a fact. It has reached in this country its greatest perfection in technical work, and we trust and hope that we also possess the will and the brains to raise the theoretical and scientific position of the profession to a like elevation. In order to do this, it is incumbent upon every student to qualify himself to do something towards this end; if you cannot yourself undertake original investigations, you can give encouragement to those who do by making the effort to inform yourselves so as to hold an intelligent view of the researches. of others. A definite outline of the course of study to be pursued in the coming winter session was given, followed by a tribute to the late Prof. T. L. Buckingham. If the inauguration of the term was a criterion, we bespeak for the school a successful winter's work. OUR grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. |