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PROFESSIONAL ATMOSPHERE AND MORALS; 
 
 OR 
 
 PATENTS AND SECRETS vs. LIBERAL PROFESSION. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DKMVKKKD BKFOUE 
 
 ®l)e Hero JDork ©iontological Socictij, 
 
 March 19, 1889. 
 
 NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, 
 
 BY 
 
 HORATIO 0. MERIAM, 
 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY DENTAL SCU 
 
 D.M.D., 
 
 OOL. 
 
 I 
 1 
 
 REPRINTED 
 
 1889. 
 

PROFESSIONAL ATMOSPHERE AND MORALS; OR, PATENTS 
 AND SECRETS vs. A LIBERAL PROFESSION. 
 
 BY HORATIO C. MERIAM, D.M.D,, HARVARD UNIVERSITY DENTAL SCHOOL, 
 
 (Address delivered before the Now York Odontological Society March 19, 1889, and reprinted from the 
 Dental Cosmos for June, 1889.) 
 
 Mr. President, and Fellow-Members of the New York Odonto- 
 logical Society : 
 
 It is natural to those who see the broad right of way that the 
 liberal professions have held through literature, science, and art, to 
 ask the source of that right, how acquired and maintained. 
 
 In a commencement address before the Dental and Medical Schools 
 of Harvard, in Boston, in 1871, the Eev. Edward Everett Hale gave 
 the difference between a body of professional men and a body of 
 craftsmen. He held that every diploma given in a liberal profession 
 contained three pledges which those who received them bound them- 
 selves to maintain by accepting : a pledge to learn for all ; a pledge 
 to practice for all ; and a pledge to teach freely to all. These three, 
 — to learn for all, to practice for all, and to teach for all, — uniting as 
 they do past, present, and future, and implying freedom, are laid as 
 a foundation, whereby we may test the claim of dentistry to be a 
 liberal profession, and its practice that of a specialty of medicine. 
 
 I do not propose to go beyond these obligations to-night. 
 
 Dr. Hale has not given authority to them, but whether his opinion 
 or that of others, they concern us as a statement of the law of a 
 liberal profession, the observance of which prolongs and strengthens 
 its life, and the neglect or abandonment of which would be followed 
 by professional death. The obligation to learn and teach brings to 
 the front the position of doctor, or teacher. 
 
 The doctor's position has always depended on his fidelity as a 
 teacher. Your nostrum-vender, or maker of proprietary articles or 
 medicines, who will not teach the making or their formulas, is one 
 who disgraces this position and has no right to the title. So, also, 
 
if a discoverer or inventor in a liberal profession patents the require- 
 ments of his profession, making them his exclusive property, and, in 
 the language of the Patent Office, secures " the exclusive right to 
 make, vend, and use" them, he violates the pledges of his diploma, 
 and has lost his claim to belong to a liberal profession. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin asks, in one of his essays, why it is that the clergy- 
 man, the lawyer, the physician, the army or navy officer receive 
 more honor or hold a higher position in the opinion of the world 
 than does the merchant, in proportion to the time spent in acquiring 
 the essential knowledge. And he answers it by saying that the 
 world has wrongly accepted the merchant at his own estimate, that 
 he works for money and may decide without loss of prestige always 
 in favor of those transactions that pay him best ; whereas, in the 
 professions, the world recognizes that each must often turn from 
 that which pays best to that which is the most dangerous or least 
 profitable. The lawyer may become a judge, and must refuse bribes, 
 or to sit in cases in which he has a personal interest, or take advan- 
 tage of knowledge, in a pecuniary way, which has come to him 
 while hearing cases. The clergyman who neglects the care of souls 
 or to teach truth for more profitable work, or who preaches error 
 or falsehood if it pay best ; the physician who would not face con- 
 tagion ; the army or navy officer who would not risk his life, or who 
 would retire on the eve of battle, for the sake of money, — are all 
 without honor. 
 
 Agassiz, in his will, wrote himself " Louis Agassiz, Teacher," 
 selecting this title in preference to all others. While conducting 
 some experiments in his laboratory, he received an offer of a large 
 sum from the West for a course of lectures on natural history. He 
 replied, " I cannot afford to waste my time in making money." This 
 reply, natural to him, aroused great wonder, and Agassiz wondered 
 that they wondered. He knew that hundreds of men both in this 
 country and in Europe would have given the same answer. To a 
 business man, the fact that a scientist was too busy to make money 
 was a revelation. This brought the fact before them, and gave 
 science in America a position and stimulus that it feels to this day. 
 From that time on, money flowed to Agassiz in a continuous stream, 
 and he who afterwards said that he never was a quarter of a dollar 
 ahead in his life and never expected to be, found himself in a posi- 
 tion to call for money as often as he needed it for science, and it 
 came. He made the title of teacher almost glorious, and left a name 
 that has been to science in America a continual benediction. 
 
 " This wonderful creature," as an admirer describes him, called 
 not only money but men to his aid. From the emperor of Brazil 
 with his mountains, to the farmer and laborer, who would leave 
 
their work to dig for him a specimen, all helped. There was the 
 personality of the man, to be sure, added to science ; but the sci- 
 entific test for a scientist was the same before and is the same to-day. 
 Fidelity to their obligations as teachers. 
 
 The article by the Duke of Argyle called " The Great Lesson" is 
 of interest as illustrating this, and the atmosphere and morals of 
 science, the integrity of its teachers, and the obligations to truth 
 which they acknowledge. 
 
 The voyage of the " Beagle" ended in 1836, during which Mr. 
 Darwin made his observations, and framed his theories of the for- 
 mation of the coral reefs and islands. More than thirty-five years 
 after, the " Challenger" expedition, with Mr. John Murray as nat- 
 uralist, was sent out. He " made observations and drew conclusions 
 that called for a new explanation." (I quote from the duke's paper.) 
 " This was communicated to the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh in 1880> 
 and supported by such a weight of facts and such a close texture of 
 reasoning that no serious reply has ever been attempted. At the 
 same time the reluctance to admit such an error in the greal idol of 
 the scientific world, the necessity of suddenly disbelieving all that 
 had been believed and repeated in every form for upwards of forty 
 years, of canceling what had been taught the young for more than 
 a whole generation, had led to a slow and sulky acquiescence rather 
 than to that joy which every true votary of science ought to feel 
 in the discovery of a new truth, and not less in the exposure of a 
 long-accepted error." 
 
 The charges so distinctly made by the Duke of Argyle soon re- 
 ceived a warm repl}^. It was held he had charged the leading scien- 
 tists of England with a " conspiracy of silence; " that they were so 
 anxious to guard the memory of Darwin and to preserve his theory 
 that they had refused to investigate truth ; in other words, had 
 formed a "Trust," or what we now know as a "Combination," to 
 exclude all competing discoverers and prevent by silence free dis- 
 cussion of scientific questions, and discourage investigators, and by 
 so doing they were guilty of conspiracy. Professors Huxley and 
 Bonney replied warmly, the former not only to the duke but to a 
 preacher whom he calls " Anonymous," and said, " For, not content 
 with misrepresenting science on its speculative side, ' Anonymous' 
 attacks its morality ; thus : ' For two whole years investigations and 
 conclusions which would upset the theories of Darwin on the forma- 
 tion of coral islands were actually suppressed, and that by the advice 
 of those who accepted them, for fear of upsetting the faith and dis- 
 turbing the judgment formed by the multitude on the scientific 
 character, the infallibility of the great master. . . . ' " 
 
 Prof Huxley denies the truth of this, and says, " The charge thus 
 
brought by ' Anonj^mous ' affects the honor and the probity of men 
 of science; if it is true, we have forfeited all claim to the confidence 
 of the general public." 
 
 Prof Bonney was not less decided, and says, after quoting the 
 duke's article, — 
 
 " This is plain speaking. In words that admit of no ambiguity 
 the duke declares that Darwin was wrong ; that Mr. Murray set him 
 right ; and that the latter, instead of receiving a welcome, was met 
 with a virtual conspiracy of silence on the part of scientific men.'' 
 He denies the first two, and says, — 
 
 " . . . . We come then to the third charge, which is the 
 most serious one, because it affects the morality of scientific men ; 
 and many of them, like myself, are old-fashioned enough to resent 
 being called a knave more than being called a fool. Has Mr. Murray 
 been met by a conspiracy of silence?" He denies this also and 
 shows that it cannot be true, and adds, "Men of science are justly 
 sensitive on this question. Doubtless they are not more exempt 
 from human frailty than any other class of men ; we all fail some- 
 times, nay, too often, to live up to our ideal standard; still such 
 shortcomings are not common, and anything like a ' conspiracy 
 of silence' or any kind of scientific boycotting is a thing so improb- 
 able as to be almost incredible." 
 
 This, then, of the scientific men of the day. You may reply that 
 these are questions of pure science, or not connected with medical 
 practice or its temptations. True; but physicians would claim to 
 be actuated by scientific motives, and be governed by the same 
 liberal principles, be under the same moral obligations, and wish to 
 rank among those who are bidden by their diplomas " to own no 
 master but Truth." 
 
 Let us turn to law. "I hold," says Lord Bacon, "every man a 
 debtor to his profession from the which as men do seek to receive 
 countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor them- 
 selves by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto. 
 This is performed in some degree by the honest and liberal practice 
 of a profession when men shall carry a respect not to descend into 
 any course that is corrupt and unworthy thereof, and preserve them- 
 selves free from the abuses wherewith the same profession is noted 
 to be infected ; but much more is this performed if a man be able to 
 visit and strengthen the roots and foundations of the science itself, 
 thereby not only gracing it in reputation and dignity, but also 
 amplifying it in perfection and substance." 
 
 Here again is the obligation to serve their profession recognized 
 as binding on its members. And it is a position, " as one sees the 
 long line of scholars, poets, and sages, and reads of the college 
 
cloisters and quadrangles of Oxford and Cambridge, whose very 
 stones seem happier for being there," to desire tiiat our profession 
 should take its place among them, and say, " These are for us too." 
 So we all felt a great pride when dentistry was admitted to univer- 
 sities, and dental schools established. Now we wish for such advance 
 in liberality that they shall not be training-schools where the useful 
 and needful only are taught, but where dentistiy is taught as a 
 liberal, free, and learned profession; and rightfully hope that the 
 universities will raise the teaching of dentistry to the university 
 standard, and not lower the university standard so that graduates 
 in dentistry cannot claim to be the equals in liberality with those 
 of divinity, law, and medicine. 
 
 Who would have expected that Dr. Eollins, one of the brightest 
 men who has been graduated from the dental school at Harvard, 
 could have written what I shall presently quote, and still less that it 
 should have passed uncontradicted by any dental school or society 
 in America? 
 
 " So long," he writes, " as members of the profession who patent 
 their inventions and make money on them are honored to the 
 highest extent in our power by being asked to be leaders in our 
 schools and before societies, so long will dentistry remain a trade, 
 and I for one shall be ashamed to use my dental degree." 
 
 Is not dentistry in a position to resent this? Eesent it if we please ; 
 still, like unsettled questions which have no respect for the repose 
 of nations, it will not down if true. 
 
 A leading American practitioner writes me, " We are fast becoming 
 a mere tender to a trade association, and about all the liberty there 
 is left us is the right to buy goods." 
 
 Is dentistry, then, in a diiferent position from that of other pro- 
 fessions that claim to be liberal? There are, of course, those who 
 have taken the degree of Doctor of Medicine as covering the 
 whole, and who do not care for a partial degree in medicine or sur- 
 gery ; others find that the recognition of the dental degree by the 
 American Medical Association is all that is needed ; but these leave 
 the point untouched. Has the dental profession of to-day the 
 morals and atmosphere that entitle her to be called a liberal, free, 
 learned, or scientific profession, and to rank with divinity, law, and 
 medicine? 
 
 It will not do to trust to medical degrees to entitle dentistry to 
 this position, for they may be obtained for use as a pass-word or for 
 patronage or influence ; and a medical degree, or education, or mem- 
 bership in the American Medical Association, intended strictly for 
 publication and not as a guarantee of faithful assumption of the 
 liberal obligations they have always implied, will not avail much for 
 the elevation of the profession. 
 
6 
 
 There are some who quote the irregular practices of oflF-color 
 physicians as affording a shield for themselves, and a hope that the 
 American Medical Association will not look too closely into dental 
 exclusiveness. To be of real value to dentistry, the recognition of 
 it must call on us to leave quack ways and methods behind. We 
 are not ambitious to rank with off-color physicians, or to make by 
 reason of patents and secrets an off-color section in the association. 
 We do not want it to shut its eyes to violations of the code to admit 
 us, and thus step backward. Let them provide that all papers, 
 clinics, and exhibitions given be up to the standard of the other 
 sections, or else their recognition of dentistry will be a curse and 
 not a blessing. 
 
 Since, then, we are to go behind the degree to the teaching, from 
 the title to the doing, we ask, is dentistry, with all its titles and de- 
 grees, in a different position from the professions that rank as liberal ? 
 
 The student of divinit}^ must satisfy the denomination which he 
 elects of his fitness, comply with the laws of the State, and so long 
 as he conforms with its tenets need not fear that one of his brothers 
 will invent a scheme of salvation which he will sell to a company 
 which will charge him for its use, or will keep to himself the " ex- 
 clusive right to make, vend, or use" it ; but, on the contrary, may 
 look forward to the day when some university or seat of learning 
 shall give him, as among its highest honors, the title of Doctor, — 
 Teacher of Divinity. 
 
 The student in law must pass his examinations, comply with the 
 laws of the State and the rules established by his profession, and 
 maj" then be free to serve his clients, and may avail himself of all 
 the past and present experience of others without let or hindrance, 
 and need not ask consent of a fellow-member to improve a process 
 or serve one, for no one of them has by patent the power to prevent 
 him, or is the owner of a secret (legal) remedy. 
 
 The student in medicine must reach the educational standard of 
 his school, comply with the statutes of the State regulating the 
 practice of medicine, and he is free also within these limits. He may 
 have made or may improve instruments without asking permission 
 of his fellows ; may perform operations without obtaining a license 
 from a company, or leave from another. He may ask the formula of 
 any medicine that claims to be scientific, call for aid in consultation 
 whenever needed ; call for information, as a right expect a reply 
 giving it, — all by reason of being a liberal, or member of a liberal 
 profession. He may be sure that he is at liberty to perform any 
 operation he has seen done at a hospital clinic without fear of subse- 
 quent litigation ; may order instruments without fear that litigation 
 will prevent their delivery. 
 
Now, is the dental profession as free or as liberal? For years we 
 were under the rule of a Eubber Company, the last part of the time 
 through the purchase of a patent from a dentist. The present Tooth 
 Crown Company will hold the profession, if successful, by virtue of 
 aid given by dentists, by the men who formed it being received at 
 clinics and introduced without the improvements or operations being 
 given fully to the profession. In fact, to use a homely illustration, 
 they were " given with a string tied to them so that they could be 
 pulled back — and the profession pulled in." 
 
 The student in dentistry is taught with patent instruments, uses 
 daily filling-materials whose formulas the instructors do not know ; 
 and, after passing examinations and fulfilling the legal requirements 
 of the State, must, if he wishes to practice all that is published in his 
 text-book regarding operations, pay, or buy a license from others, 
 or expect litigation. He will find the instruments of his profession 
 so handicapped with patents that all makers are not at liberty to 
 serve him. They can withhold, or decline to make, and refuse to 
 permit others to do so. This power has been given them by his 
 brothers, who have sold to them the " exclusive right to make, vend, 
 or use." They can direct him to cease imjDroving an instrument, 
 because they have bought from a brother the patent which covers 
 it, and have thus secured this power. Even a better instrument 
 cannot be introduced when this power has been sold to those outside 
 of the profession. If he is studying any question which involves 
 instruments or processes, he may find himself obliged to ask the 
 permission of his brothers to work at the problem, or else I mistake 
 in my reading of the foot-note to an article by Dr. Bogue ir^ the 
 Dental Cosmos of March, 1885, where we are informed that " Dr. 
 Jarvis was the first to separate teeth by means of a screw, that Dr. 
 Perry had improved on this instrument, and that, with the permis- 
 sion of both these gentlemen. Dr. Bogue had been working on the 
 problem for several years." These are three well-known names 
 in the profession ; one has had permission to work on the prob- 
 lem of separating teeth. He may find, after becoming a member 
 of societies and listening to papers read at the meetings, or when he 
 reads his own journals, that papers seem to be written to help the 
 sale of appliances that destroy his independence, that men clinic to 
 advertise instruments, or that clinics are used to introduce quacks 
 or quack methods. That if he ask information at a meeting or 
 clinic regarding a compound he may be refused by the person pre- 
 senting it ; find, after witnessing an operation, that he must take out 
 a license before introducing it in his practice. This license may in- 
 volve conditions, and be taken from him at any time for non-fulfill- 
 ment of them. 
 
It is possible for a Sixth or Eighth avenue dentist to purchase 
 the entire right for ]^ew York City, and those who practice between 
 Sixth and Madison avenues become dependent on him for permission 
 to study or use. He may demand the right to inspect books at any 
 time, have them brought to him, or prescribe in what form they 
 shall be kept, have the lists of patients for whom the operations are 
 performed sent to him as often as need be, and rightfully refer to 
 any he controls as " a man who works for me." It often calls for as 
 much expense in time and thought to prepare a paper or perfect the 
 details of an operation as to invent an instrument. The dentist who 
 is obliged to pay his brother for the right to use instruments, may not 
 be able to invent another, and so " get even." He may, however, be 
 able to devise a new way of filling, or process of construction, and as 
 he cannot dispose of this like an instrument, he must sell to a company 
 who will " work it on the license or royalty plan." For, bear in 
 mind that up to this time we have not been willing to face the ques- 
 tion of the falsehood of patents in a liberal profession, but have 
 admitted their place in dentistry, and have only fought to test the 
 legality of those where license or royalty has been asked. We 
 strain at the gnat of the Tooth Crown Company, but swallow with- 
 out trouble the camel of illiberal patents and secret materials. We 
 should be teachers, not traders, and condemn alike all the men who 
 sell the profession into the hands of trade. At the present time 
 some are selling the control of instruments to makers, others pro- 
 cesses and operations to companies who wish to license ; thus pro- 
 viding an upper and a nether millstone between which the great 
 body of the profession can be ground exceeding small. 
 
 Many patent defenders say that a man should get his pay for time 
 and labor. With this simple statement there can be no quarrel. 
 The professional view is this : that in getting his pay, he is under 
 moral obligation not to injure his profession, nor by reason of his 
 invention give power over the profession or any fellow-member to 
 any one. That if by reason of it he has aided oppression of makers 
 of limited means, or has subjected them to litigation, he makes him- 
 self and the profession a party to illiberal motives and tendencies. 
 In a liberal profession mutual help, exchange of thought, whether 
 embodied in instruments, essays, or consultations, should be a suffi- 
 cient compensation, and it is so held in the medical profession. 
 
 I read with shame and professional humiliation of a teacher who 
 makes an appliance of a secret material, patented, so that no one else 
 can make it, sold through a " sole agent " to combination dealers only. 
 Exclusive in conception, exclusive in execution, exclusive in manner 
 of distribution. When this is the teacher, what will be the student ? 
 
 I am frequently met with the remark, " I guess if any of those 
 
professional fellows got up a good thing they would patent it and 
 make what they could out of it." True, perhaps, but I have yet to 
 learn that that is the question under consideration. The point is, 
 that having done so and secured from the government the power to 
 prevent all others from "making, vending, or using" without my 
 consent, the power to put fellow-members under tribute, or sold to 
 others that right, can I claim a right to continued association with 
 them on equal terms? Can I claim to be a liberal member of a 
 liberal, /ree, profession, having aided to bind it? If a man will not 
 work, neither shall he eat. If he will not give, how can he claim 
 the right to receive ? 
 
 We may, in our poverty, envy Cummings, who sold us for money 
 to the Dental Vulcanite Company, and say we would do the same if 
 we had the chance, and that Dr. Barnum was a fool not to do so; 
 speak of the advantage that rubber plates have been to thousands. 
 But when we talk of ethics we should know that we were not free 
 men or a free profession during those years of disgraceful bondage ; 
 the atmosphere was a trade atmosphere, and the men developed in 
 it not professional men, and it has left a stain of trade on our pro- 
 fession that may never be effaced. 
 
 Our constitution secures patents as property, but there are higher 
 powers than constitutions. Patents were legally granted under it 
 for explosive bullets, but civilized men have not used them against 
 each other, as the object of modern warfare is not to destroy life, 
 but to settle questions. 
 
 According to Blackstone, the government grants a patent in re- 
 turn for such information as placed on record will enable others to 
 construct or use the article or process after the period for which its 
 exclusive use was granted has expired ; in this way overcoming the 
 tendency of mean natures to conceal information, or withhold know- 
 ledge from others. 
 
 "If your work be mean," says Emerson, "try by your thought 
 and feeling to make it liberal." Physicians, as members of a liberal 
 profession whose first object is not to acquire power, are by reason 
 of their membership under obligations to teach, and do not need the 
 stimulus of a patent to make them record knowledge or aid each 
 other or mankind ; and while the constitution will give them the 
 right to patent, they do not wish, as honorable gentlemen, to avail 
 themselves of the power it gives to exact or withhold from each 
 other what their privilege of membership in a liberal profession 
 always implies should be given freely. 
 
 I went through the Children's Hospital, in Boston, and after pass- 
 ing through the wards asked to be shown the workshop where their 
 instruments and apparatus are made. I said to the surgeon who 
 
10 
 
 attended me, " It is as important that you should have those men 
 under your control to make as you direct, as to control the nurses. 
 Allow them to patent those instruments, or patent each improve- 
 ment that helps you overcome some new difficulty, and sell the con- 
 trol to them, and it would be but a few years before they were 
 exercising more authority over the instruments used in the hospital 
 than you." Then I told him the whole story of the shameful, 
 illiberal condition of dental practice: that instruments ordered 
 could not be delivered on account of the quarrels and litigation 
 among makers ; that honorable practitioners had been forced by 
 threats of litigation to take out licenses to perform operations and 
 pay a commission on the amount received, — were obliged to allow 
 the company liberty to examine their books ; that I had heard that 
 upwards of a hundred orders for one instrument could not be 
 filled, because dentists had sold to makers the power to control 
 instruments their fellow-members needed ; that valuable instruments 
 could not be introduced because patents were thought to cover them, 
 and, by having purchased those, makers could threaten with litiga- 
 tion any one who proposed to make them ; that certain instruments 
 were held for lease and not sold, that a license and percentage were 
 to be charged for their use, and that this license could be revoked at 
 any time for non-payment. He exclaimed in astonishment, " Are 
 dentists in such a hole as that ? " 
 
 The commercial value of a patent is often in the power it gives, 
 not in the time spent on it, or its ingenuity, nor its value to the 
 profession ; and a maker, seeking to control a market or an instru- 
 ment, will not look except to the valuable vantage point that he 
 can secure by purchasing it. If one by buying a patent on an in-, 
 strument can prevent competitors coming into the field, that will be 
 the value of the patent to him. A patent, of little or no value on 
 its merits, may thus be the key to a legal situation, and others may; 
 be ruined by a bought patent. It is interesting to notice that the 
 same class of minds that justify patents in dentistry also justify 
 secret preparations and the refusal to teach improvement or give, 
 information, and the formula of materials or medicine and their true 
 or scientific nomenclature. Thus patents are only part of their 
 offending against the standard set for a liberal profession, and thus 
 the real object — exclusiveness — becomes apparent. Others seek to 
 turn the question from patent right to copyright, though I have not 
 heard them mention the book whose owners have formed a company 
 and worked it on the "license or royalty plan." When copyright 
 is used like patent right, so that the consent of the author or 
 owner must be asked before operations can be performed, and com- 
 panies are formed to license, permit, or appoint those who shall have 
 
11 
 
 the right to act for them in certain territory, it will be the duty of 
 tho8e who guard education and the liberal profession to include that 
 also, among those things that debar from membership or association. 
 
 Mr. Dixey has, I believe, the exclusive right in all America to sing 
 "It's English, you Know," but Mr. Dixey does not call himself a 
 member of a liberal profession, or claim to be under its obligation, 
 nor does he ask favors of them ; nor can he claim for others, as does 
 a physician, the right of consultation by virtue of his society mem- 
 bership. 
 
 A defender of patents in dentistry, in writing to a medical journal, 
 makes this humiliating confession regarding the subserviency to trade 
 to which they have reduced dental societies : " Our dental inven- 
 tions are not," he writes, " shut up like those of our medical confreres 
 in one city or in one society, but are shown in practical use at all 
 the clinics of the State societies, either by the inventor in person, 
 or a practitioner appointed by the dental firm who holds the right of 
 manufacturing." 
 
 Are the appointments of the surgeons who operate in the hospi- 
 tals of your city made by firms who own and manufacture instru- 
 ments? Is this right of manufacturing ever sold without the power 
 to threaten or to sue other dentists who may be improving instru- 
 ments that may infringe or compete with it? One would suppose 
 that pecuniary interest would be enough to debar from a meeting or 
 clinic those things in which practitioners had a financial interest. 
 For in a meeting a member is at once judge and jury and witness ; 
 and Garretson says, in writing on expert testimony, •' that the scien- 
 tific man who appears in the witness box as an advocate cuckolds 
 science." And are our societies, schools, and journals less in impor- 
 tance ? Mr. Justice Gray, of the United States Supreme Court, 
 left the bench and did not take part in hearing " The Telephone 
 Case" merely because a relative was a stockholder; and no lawyer 
 can be asked to try a case before a judge or jury who would be 
 financially interested in the result of the verdict. 
 
 In clinics all should be given as part of a scientific and professional 
 demonstration, not as a sign-board to point the way to the shop of 
 some exclusive maker. Clinics are best defined as " bedside teaching,'' 
 but our neglect of professional obligations has reduced them to bed- 
 side peddling. I doubt if there is a dental society holding clinics 
 to-day that is not introducing illiberal practices. The odious Tooth 
 Crown Company gained its first introduction through them. 
 
 The dignity of the professional teacher requires that clinics shall 
 not be used as advertising boards for patent instruments or materials, 
 but that all operations taught in them should be performed with free 
 instruments, and should be as free \q be followed as any operations 
 
12 
 
 in the hospitals of your city by the surgeons witnessing them. 
 Better give them up than to have them used by Tooth Crown Com- 
 panies, or the like, or conducted in a trade atmosphere which poisons 
 professional life-blood, so that it will not forma healthy professional 
 growth. On nearly every society programme I see the names of 
 teachers in our colleges, who, by reason of their patents on the 
 instruments to be used in the clinics, make it not unfair in us to 
 suppose they derive a pecuniary benefit thereby ; and I, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, who am a simple man, and perhaps foolish enough to think 
 that men who desire to be classed as belonging to a liberal profession 
 should strive to show the outward or visible signs or forms of one 
 as evidence that they are possessed, also, of its inward or spiritual 
 grace, have been sadly troubled whether to class these gentlemen 
 as " college teachers" acting as depot-steerers, or " depot-steerers" 
 acting as college teachers. 
 
 If we are to be satisfied with menial positions because they pay 
 best, well and good. Some cooks receive a larger sum per annum 
 than some college presidents ; but I have not heard that our univer- 
 sities have, as yet, given up teaching the humanities to train cooks, 
 nor that the latter are asked to grace our platforms on commence- 
 ment days. 
 
 Let us be spared the mortification of knowing that any member 
 of a body which calls itself a liberal profession, governed by moral 
 and professional obligations, has been so false to them as to assist liti- 
 gation among our instrument-makers by selling to them for money 
 the power to destroy the men of small capital, and has stood by 
 consenting to their commercial death. The man who can say, " I 
 will go with makers when they pay me more than societies," prosti- 
 tutes professional position. There should be no underground rail- 
 road running between the editor's chair and the shop of the maker 
 or dealer in instruments. The editing of a journal should be done 
 with as much understanding of The Code and what constitutes a 
 liberal profession as any service it receives. All professional matters 
 should be given importance, and all trade interests equal terms. No 
 article should appear in the reading pages written in behalf of 
 materials in which editor or publisher have pecuniary interest. 
 They should have no connection with trade so that it would be to 
 their interest to delay or prevent publication of the freest discussion 
 of the requirements of practice, or any topic that the profession 
 chooses to take up. A journal must be the outspoken mouth-piece 
 of an outspoken profession; for to allow the advertising pages to be 
 controlled by any one dealer mars the professional standing of the 
 whole journal. For a member of the profession to lend his name 
 as editor to a journal whose publisher is likewise an instrument- 
 
13 
 
 maker, who refuses to admit or continue advertisements of compet- 
 ing makers, is to tarnish professional character and the independence 
 of the editor as well. Let the reading pages be open to the intro- 
 duction of practical matter and improvement also. Let them find a 
 place beside the microscopist for a description and illustration of 
 the wonderful blow-pipe of Prof John 8. Thompson, of Atlanta, 
 Georgia, and beside the pathologist for the machine for cutting 
 engine-burs invented by Dr. E. B. Call, of Peoria, 111. We cannot 
 expect them to be given equal importance in our journals if they 
 are not conceived of by the inventors, the profession, and the society, 
 as services due to it by reason of membership. For many of these 
 omissions the blame rests at our own doors. Had the beautiful 
 mechanism perfected by Dr. Perry, and known as the Weber-Perry 
 engine, been completely described and illustrated so that any prac- 
 titioner could have had one made by a competent instrument-maker, 
 when first invented, it would have become the absolute property 
 of the pi'ofession ; and what better service can be given to-day than 
 the invention and presentation of a dental engine that may be made 
 by any instrument-maker, and rank as a professional surgical instru- 
 ment ? 
 
 From a scientific, moral, or professional stand-point, it would seem 
 almost incredible that the editor or publisher of journals claiming 
 to represent the profession should know of valuable instruments, 
 and not mention them in their journals, be the owners of processes 
 of manufacture that are not published, or should be concerned in 
 hindering their use by others. It is disgraceful even to be sus- 
 pected of hindering a professional or scientific man from obtain- 
 ing anything he wishes to use in his work, that they should be con- 
 cerned in suppressing competition, or give men who violate the 
 medical code prominence in their journals. Yet the statement is 
 freely made that processes of use to the dentist are not printed by 
 editors or publishers of our journals, though known by them for 
 years. 
 
 Dentistry cannot ignore the mechanical, but must clothe it with 
 honor as the orthopedic surgeon has done, by bringing what enters 
 into our practice under scientific and liberal control. 
 
 With the combination of instrument-makers and others called by 
 those who compose it the " Dental Trade Association," we are con- 
 cerned, as it affects our profession. It is not something we are at 
 liberty to discuss if we wish ; but if its effects are such as to keep 
 dental requirements from the usual channels of medical and other 
 scientific supplies, or to hinder competent persons engaging in our 
 service, it becomes a question that it is our duty to discuss, and one 
 which we have no right to omit. 
 
14 
 
 The evil effects of patents and secrets in the profession are mani- 
 fested as well by their effect on our instrument-makers ; they have 
 become so thoroughly debauched by them that the first question 
 seems to be always, not to supply what is needed, but to make that of 
 which they can secure exclusive control either by secrets or patents. 
 
 The advantage gained by a patent or secret process encourages the 
 aggregation of interest; and, having secured the power to prevent 
 all others from making one instrument, it was but a logical step to 
 form an organization which should secure the control of all the re- 
 quirements of dental practice, and under this system those who 
 have patents or secrets to sell will receive more consideration than 
 those who wish to introduce professional or open articles in which 
 there may be subsequent competition. 
 
 Some time after graduating I became interested in gutta-percha, 
 followed it as well as I could from supply to source, and gave 
 all I knew freely to students and societies. I received one day an 
 application from a dealer who had been asked by dentists to procure 
 it for them. I replied as follows, — I omit names, of course, because 
 this is not a fight against persons, but for a principle : 
 
 " Yours of . . . . is at hand. I shall be much pleased to aid 
 you in getting a gutta-percha filling before the profession, and will 
 teach freely all I know regarding it to any one whom you may 
 select. I shall require in return that it be professional in every way. 
 Its formula must be printed both on the label and circular, both to 
 be made out as directed by me. It must then be ranked among 
 physicians' and surgeons' supplies, and sold at a uniform wholesale 
 rate to all druggists, dental depots, makers and dealers in dental and 
 surgical instruments, etc. Eegard for the standing of the profession, 
 and my position as a teacher at the dental school, will not permit 
 me to grant the use of my name except under these conditions." 
 
 Were there any conditions imposed that any physician or teacher 
 should not require ? Yet the substance of the reply I received was: 
 " On business principles we could not accept the conditions you 
 mentioned ; it would be too much of a departure from business 
 plans of the past for us to undertake." 
 
 It was certainly my duty to require what I did, and I presume, 
 also, the gentlemen who wrote me felt it their duty to "The Com- 
 bination " to refuse to supply the gutta-percha as a pi-ofessional 
 material. 
 
 I notice that it is claimed by a speaker in a Western meeting that 
 this " association is just the same as the dental society," and organ- 
 ized just as we are " to keep out scalawags." Now, our societies are 
 not organized to keep out scalawags, but by the scientific and liberal 
 associations that should cluster around them to prevent members from 
 
15 
 
 becoming scalawags. But the scalawag question interests me a 
 little further; for I read under article 16, page 12, of what purports 
 to be the " By-Laws of the Dental Trade Association : " " In future 
 no practicing dentist, not now a dealer, shall be eligible to membership in 
 this association, or entitled to trade discounts." And I am moved to 
 ask if, in the opinion of our Western friend of the combination, 
 " practicing dentist" and " scalawag" are synonymous terms. 
 
 It is not strange if, for a time, our instrument-makers fail to under- 
 stand the position they should take, for we have led a lax profes- 
 sional life, and our recognition by the American Medical Association 
 is but recent. They will now be called upon to abandon secret or 
 patent processes and instruments, and advance to the position of 
 professional and scientific makers. 
 
 Our schools can do much for securing competition. It should not 
 be in the power of the agents of any maker to say that a profes- 
 sional school " plays its students" into the hands of one. There is 
 professional propriety in favoring none. There is professional dis- 
 grace in admitting but one. 
 
 The spirit of Article I, Section 4, of the medical code should be 
 sufficient to guide us in the treatment of combination makers : 
 
 " Section IV. . . Physicians ought to use all the influence 
 which they possess as professors in colleges of pharmacy, and by ex- 
 ercising their option in regard to the shops to which their pre- 
 scriptions shall be sent, to discourage druggists and apothecaries 
 from vending quack or secret medicines, or from being in any way 
 engaged in their manufacture or sale." 
 
 It is clearly our duty under this to take heed that we encourage 
 science by purchasing and using, as far as possible, professional 
 requirements, — those that are free from patents and secrets open 
 to all qualified to make, bearing in mind that the object of the code 
 is not to fight patents and secrets in general, but to keep them 
 out of medicine, thereby providing that it shall continue a liberal 
 profession, and that we may not in buying our requirements aid in 
 degrading our calling. "Millions for supplies, and not one cent in 
 aid of quackery," will be a good motto. We should insist that all aid 
 we give workmen by directing them in the making of our require- 
 ments be met with a guarantee that they shall afterwards be 
 handled as medical and scientific supplies, thus recognizing that 
 everything has an ,ethical as well as a useful end, and, unless 
 guarded, may be used to degrade as well as to aid us. The laws of 
 health and contagion have taught us that if we will not be our 
 brother's keeper he will be our destroyer. 
 
 It is interesting to note, in connection with the assertion that the 
 combination has nothing to do with prices, that they have been 
 
16 
 
 reduced only in materials that come into competition with it and 
 can be bought outside. 
 
 " Sell me this patent ; we shall never dictate to dentists," says 
 the Tooth Crown Company or instrument-maker. The profes- 
 sional man must answer, " I cannot sell you the 'power to do it even 
 if you do not propose to." For patent does not imply use, hnipower 
 over so much of dentistry as the invention covers, and makers often 
 demand complete control as a condition of making; and once made 
 property by patent, death, sale, financial embarrassment, litigation, 
 all become agents that may remove it from the profession and give 
 its title to others. The fact that they are property is just the worst 
 part of it, and constitutes the danger to a liberal profession. Dr. 
 Hale, in the address quoted at the beginning of this paper, said, 
 " The medical profession brands with infamy the man who makes 
 God's Truth his property." We do not want our calling to depend 
 upon the views of others regarding their property, be they the 
 Tooth Crown Company or combination instrument-makers. For 
 not more surely does the wire that runs to our office bring with it 
 the subtle power of electricity, than do patents and secrets subject 
 our profession to all the vicissitudes of a trade. 
 
 Those who must advise their sons to follow or not the calling of 
 their fathers may be pardoned for wishing to know if they are to 
 advise them to take an independent calling, or one whose practice 
 on entering they will find involved in continual litigation, and for 
 whom every new operation may include a new terror or degrading 
 condition which absolute ownership by others may impose; though 
 I am free to admit that it will not interfere with the practice of 
 those who find their highest ideal of dentistry in the polish of in- 
 struments, in the cohering of gold, in the soldering of bridge-work, 
 or in the vulcanization of rubber, " and who daily strive through all 
 life's space in hope to stand well in some maker's grace." 
 
 For the raison d'etre of our profession is not to produce, secure, or 
 use highly-polished instruments. Dentistry should rise to and rest 
 its claims upon its scientific, physiological, and moral purposes and 
 obligations, — the preservation and restoration of function, the relief 
 and prevention of suffering and pain, the restoration of grace and 
 symmetry, and the aid it gives that there may be a " sound mind 
 in a sound body." That to do this we should be free as physicians 
 to call to our aid the arts and sciences ; they to furnish the means, 
 we to give the special application. That our needs create and 
 develop instruments ; they are our aids and under our control, or 
 should be, not we to be controlled by them. 
 
 We are not trying this case of " Patent Secrets vs. a Liberal Pro- 
 fession" before a jury of machine-shops, instrument-makers or 
 
17 
 
 dealers, the journals they control, their employees, or those members 
 of societies that they hold in leash. We are trying it by the liberal 
 standard set by all liberal professions. Scientific and professional 
 interests call for scientific and professional tests, and discussions on 
 them are not conducted by anonymous writers or paid attorneys. No 
 man who is willing to act in schools, societies, or journals in the pay 
 of an instrument-maker can pick a quarrel with us on this question. 
 
 I cannot do better than to quote as a witness the honored head of 
 our university, whose address before the American Academy of 
 Dental Science was the first comparative study of dentistry made 
 by so competent an authority : 
 
 "There is another common attribute of good physicians and sur- 
 geons which has had great effect to elevate and liberalize their pro- 
 fession. I mean their characteristic zeal for teaching. This zeal 
 is manifested not only in giving direct instruction to medical students, 
 but in imparting to medical societies and the public every important 
 fact observed, every useful practice invented, and every suggestive 
 opinion or promising theory conceived. The constant desire and 
 purpose on the part of its members to teach, to impart to all any 
 peculiar knowledge which each may acquire, is one of the principal 
 distinctions between a liberal profession and a trade. Dentistry 
 would have no claim to be called a liberal profession did not its- 
 practitioners manifest this zeal for teaching." 
 
 Those who are making this fight for the improvement of dentistry 
 will not be turned by ridicule or misrepresentation, for we know 
 that that can be cheaply hired in the market, but those that oppose 
 us must show that we have misrepresented medicine or the liberal 
 professions ; when they have done that we will beg their pardon and 
 retire from the contest. 
 
 You will all be glad, I know, to hear these words from a Nestor 
 of our profession, Dr. W. W. H. Thackston, of Virginia : 
 
 Farmtillb, Ya., March the 9th, 1889. 
 Horatio C. Meriam, D.M.D., Salem, Mass. : 
 
 My dear Doctor, — Yery warmly sympathizing with your efforts and labors for 
 the betterment and true advancement of dentistry as a "liberal profession," I 
 can only most keenly regret that my health at present forbids a trip from home, 
 unless to visit a milder climate than even Virginia affords. 
 
 I am just recovering from a bronchial and laryngeal trouble, which demands- 
 every precaution to avert a relapse, and consequently have been obliged to decline 
 the kind and courteous invitation of the New York Odontological Society to be 
 their guest at the approaching meeting. I lament my inability to be personally 
 present at the said meeting of the Odontological Society, where I might have 
 another opportunity of giving oral expression to sentiments, views, and convic- 
 tions which 1 have held, and which I have earnestly sought to teach and enforce 
 in all my private professional intercourse and public positions and relations during 
 nearly five decades of active professional life. 
 
18 
 
 For nearly fifty years I have unceasingly labored to lift American dentistry to 
 the plane of an accepted, recognized, and acknowledged liberal profession, — a pro- 
 fession co-equal in character, in dignity, and general esteem and appreciation 
 with medicine, with general surgery, with law, and with any and all the accepted 
 and accredited departments of science. I have always and everywhere, with 
 word and pen, in public addresses and monographs for the journals, by appeal, by 
 argument, by fierce invective and denunciation, antagonized the irregularities 
 and empiricism that shadowed our pretensions and stained our professional 
 escutcheon. 
 
 I have at last the- satisfaction of rejoicing in at least the partial fruition of 
 long-deferred but constantly cherished hopes. At last I have lived to see dentistry 
 regularly, formally, and oflSicially adopted and admitted to the fold of learned and 
 liberal pursuits and callings. At last the true professional sentiment is asserting 
 itself in our ranks, and finding advocates and exemplars among our most distin- 
 guished representatives ; and I comfort myself with the reflection that I may yet 
 live to see the " bar sinister" wiped from our armorial ensigns. 
 
 I make no fight and have made no war against artisans, tradesmen, or others 
 outside the liberal professions who seek or have availed themselves of patents and 
 the protection of patent laws, to appropriate and make monopolies of their pur- 
 chased wares, their inventions, and their discoveries, though it must be confessed 
 that in many instances the exactions of such monopolies are most hideous and 
 oppressive ; but the legal and often strained moral right is clearly with them. 
 The unprofessional man, the artisan, the inventor, the tradesman, as a rule, have 
 not been the beneficiaries of the schools. They have not " without money and 
 without price" freely drawn upon the accumulated stores and resources of the 
 sciences and professions, of all the ages and all the civilized world. They have 
 taken no " Hippocratic oath," have pledged fealty to no code of professional 
 ethics, and may, without discredit or dishonor, cover their product with scripts 
 from the Patent Office, and only become culpable by an abuse of their vested 
 monopoly. 
 
 The professional man, the physician, the general or the special surgeon, the 
 dentist, who conceals or appropriates a discovery, an invention, an instrument, 
 appliance, or an improved method, who compounds a nostrum and dispenses it 
 for his individual profit, or who sells the same for a consideration to another with 
 the design of its being covered by letters patent, — violates and contravenes every 
 principle and sentiment of professional morality, every obligation held ssacred by 
 the " code," every usage and tradition accepted, honored, and observed as the 
 distinguishing characteristic of an elevated and liberal calling. 
 
 I will not attempt to supplement the arguments you will address to the Odonto- 
 logical Society of New York ; and the limits of such a communication as I am 
 now making afford no opportunity of contrasting the long line of " immortals" 
 who have honored the profession, who have ennobled the true manhood, and who 
 have blessed humanity with their labors and benefactions, and who have accepted 
 the approval of their own consciences and the gratitude of their fellow-men as a full 
 and abundant requital of their grand achievements and priceless bequests, with 
 the selfishness and vulgar cupidity that has shamed our age, and which casts re- 
 proach upon our claims to a higher civilization. The ravening beast of prey 
 finds a luscious morsel; he gloats, devours, and shows his teeth and claws to his 
 own whelps and kind. The " Tooth Crown," the " Eubber," or other patentee 
 grips his new-found good (or bad) thing, and to all comers, even his whelps and 
 kind, shows his patent- script and demands his tribute coin. This may be sane- 
 
19 
 
 tioned by the soulless and selfish laws of trade ; but by the morals of a " liberal 
 profession'" — never. 
 
 To sum up, and conclude : Dentistry is either a trade, with the license of an 
 open and unrestricted business pursuit, or it is one of the " liberal professions." 
 If the latter (as no one will now question), it should be regulated and controlled 
 by the laws, usages, and customs that distinguish all other " liberal professions ;" 
 and from my own apprehension of the subject it is now morally mandatory that 
 dentists, as well as physicians and others, should respect, observe, and conform to 
 those laws, regulations, and usages. As I have said, and now repeat and em- 
 phasize, I make no war or fight against inventors, artisans, tradesmen, and mer- 
 chants ; but the professional member of what is recognized as a " learned and 
 liberal calling," who appropriates and patents a discovery, invention, an appli- 
 ance or remedy, or who sells the same to another to be patented and made a mono- 
 poly, not only compromises himself, but inflicts a grievous wrong upon society 
 as well as the profession which he has solemnly covenanted to honor, protect, 
 enhance, and improve. 
 
 "With highest appreciation of your efforts and labors in behalf of dentistry as a 
 " liberal profession," and with every wish for the success of the meeting of the 
 Odontological Society of New York, 
 
 I have the honor to be, very truly, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 W. W. H. Thackston. 
 
 That all may be clear, 1 have written to some whose words must 
 carry more weight than mine, and I will read you my letters and 
 the replies received. 
 
 My first is from the president of the Congress of American Phy- 
 sicians and Surgeons, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, 
 professor of surgery in Harvard University, and surgeon to the 
 City Hospital in Boston, to whom I addressed the following letter: 
 
 257 Essex St., Salem, Mass., Feb. 6, 
 Dr. David W. Cheever, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass. : 
 
 Dear Sir, — I am preparing an address for the New York Odontological Society 
 on " Professional Atmosphere and Morals," to be delivered in March next, and 
 shall be much pleased if you will give me for use iii it your opinion — as dentistry 
 claims to be a specialty of medicine — on the propriety of its members holding 
 patents on the requirements of its practice, instruments, etc., or being interested 
 in proprietary trade-mark or secret materials or medicines, or encouraging their use, 
 manufacture, or sale. Can its members with due regard for professional inde- 
 pendence, honor, and morality, hold positions as teachers in dental schools or 
 colleges, or appear as such at societies or clinics, performing operations or using 
 initruments on which they receive payment, royalty, or commission from makers 
 or companies controlling them ? Will the tendency of these things be to create 
 or destroy a liberal profession, and will they, if existing, prevent dentistry ad- 
 vancing to the position of one ? 
 
 A number of gentlemen wish to bring this matter before those interested in 
 professional questions and the improvement of dentistry. Any help that you can 
 give us will be of value to the profession and aid of us. 
 
 Very truly yours, Horatio C. Meriam. 
 
20 
 
 The following is his reply, — dividing the letter into three ques- 
 tions : 
 
 238 BoYLSTON St., Boston, Feb. 9, 1889. 
 Horatio C. Meriam, D.M.D., Salem, Mass. : 
 
 My dear Doctor, — In reply to your three Inquiries in your letter of Feb. 6, I 
 would answer, decidedly : 
 
 To the first question, No. To the second question, No. To the third question. 
 Destroy and prevent. 
 
 I am very positive that such things would not be tolerated in the medical pro- 
 fession. 
 
 Very truly yours, David W. Cheever. 
 
 A similar letter to one whose name is not unknown to you was 
 replied to as follows : 
 
 (Dictated.) 
 
 Boston, Feb. 8, 1889. 
 Dear Dr. Meriam, — It is for the dental profession to settle its own status. 
 Its work is so largely mechanical that it necessarily tempts inventors to seek for- 
 tunes through improvements in dental instruments. The more exactly they ex- 
 clude owners of money-making contrivances who patent their inventions, the 
 better will be their claim to be considered a liberal profession. 
 
 Yours very truly, 0. W. Holmes. 
 
 From the dean of Harvard Medical School and its professor of 
 physiology was received the following reply : 
 
 Jamaica Plain, Feb. 18, 1889. 
 
 Dear Dr. Meriam, — I have received your letter of Feb. 6 asking my opinion 
 on the probable eflFects upon the dental profession of its members becoming 
 pecuniarily interested in patent processes and materials used in the practice of 
 their art. As a reason for addressing me on this subject you say that " Dentistry 
 claims to be a specialty in medicine." 
 
 It seems to me that were this claim generally made and allowed there would 
 be no occasion for discussing the above question, for it would then never occur to 
 a dentist to patent a process for filling a tooth, any more than to a surgeon to 
 patent a method of operating on hernia. It is precisely because so many dentists 
 look upon their business as a trade rather than as a profession that trade methods 
 find so easy application in dentistry. With this tradesman's view it is difficult to 
 find fault. No moral reason can be given why a dentist, if he desires to do so, 
 should not reap the reward of his skill and ingenuity in the same way that is per- 
 mitted to an engineer or a mechanic. It is only when viewed from the stand- 
 point of a member of a liberal profession that such conduct appears objectionable, 
 for the chief distinction between professional men and traders is that the former 
 are animated by an esprit de corps, and work largely for the good of the com- 
 munity, while the latter have, as a rule, no such motive, and work chiefly for their 
 own individual benefit. 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that there can be no greater obstacle to the recognition 
 of dentistry as a liberal profession than the interest of the practitioner in secret 
 materials and patent methods. Hence it is clearly the duty of those who desire 
 to see dentistry assume a position as a specialty of medicine to discourage such 
 practices in every possible way. There need be no quarrel with those who see 
 
21 
 
 fit to patent their inventions or to hold patent rights, but it should be distinctly 
 und^^rstood that in so doing they are working on lines inconsistent with profes- 
 sional standards. When the lines are thus clearly drawn, the strength of the claim 
 which dentistry may make to be regarded as a liberal profession will be ap- 
 parent. 
 
 You also raise a second and quite a different question, whether a dentist may 
 "properly encourage the use, manufacture, or sale of secret materials or medicines.' 
 Here it seems to be more difficult to lay down a general rule, for it may happen 
 that a patented method of filling may be better adapted than any other to a par- 
 ticular case, and the dentist's duty to his patient would then require him to use 
 it, in the same way that a surgeon would not hesitate to use a patent drill if he 
 found it better suited than any other tool for performing a special operation. On 
 the other hand, the general use of patented methods and materials would subject 
 dentists to an intolerable supervision of their practice. Cases of the sort will, 
 however, be of much less frequent occurrence when dentistry takes its place as a 
 specialty of medicine. 
 
 With best wishes for your success in agitating this important subject, 
 
 Yours very truly, H. P. Bowditch. 
 
 The dean of the medical school expressed himself more strongly 
 than in his letter, at the recent meeting in celebration of the twen- 
 tieth anniversary of the dental school, saying that he would use 
 patent instruments that aided him, as he would use a telephone that 
 helped him in teaching physiology, but of course no professional 
 man would be pecuniarily interested in patents on instruments of 
 his profession. 
 
 I wrote our hospital in Boston to know if the clinics there are 
 ever used for the purpose of introducing patent instruments, medi- 
 cines, or operations, secret or proprietary articles, or if instruments 
 are used there on which the surgeons receive a royalty or commis- 
 sion from makers owning patents and controlling them, and if such 
 makers are allowed to influence the appointment of operators at 
 clinics. Are members of the staff obliged to ask permission of each 
 other for liberty to improve instruments, and can makers interfere 
 or prevent their doing so? 
 
 This is the reply : 
 
 Massachusetts G-eneral Hospital, 
 
 Boston, March 11, 1889. 
 Dear Dr. Meriam, — The hospital clinics are not used to introduce medicines 
 or instruments. No royalties are received by our surgeons. Members of the 
 staff are not obliged to ask permission to improve instruments. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 John W. Pratt, Resident Physician. 
 
 And lastly I read, because received last, this fi'om Dr. Barrett: 
 
 Buffalo, N. Y., March 14, 1889. 
 Dear Dr. Meriam, — I very much regret that it will be absolutely impossible 
 for me to be present at the meeting of the New York Odontological Society on the 
 
19th inst., and to listen to your paper upon " Professional Atmosphere and Morals," 
 for I know it will he an occasion of interest to every one who loves his calling. No 
 dentist can be indifferent to the subject, and it is one upon which I have bestowed 
 much thought. Are we a profession or are we not? If we are or desire to 
 he, our conduct must be regulated by professional methods. If we are a mere 
 trade, the question of professional ethics does not concern us, for there is among 
 intelligent men a distinct line drawn between the methods of conducting a pro- 
 fession and those which are proper to trade. The former has to dispose of the 
 products of his brain, while the latter sells the work of his or another's hands. 
 While both are in one sense alike honorable, the world is accustomed to value the 
 result of mental effort above that of the muscles, and people in trade are permitted a 
 license in disposing of their wares that is denied the professional man. The former 
 offers an article that has a definite commercial value, while the labors of the latter 
 depend wholly upon his professional ability, knowledge, and experience. It can 
 only be measured by methods peculiar to itself, and the honest disposal of mental 
 effort demands a code of its own, entirely distinct from that which governs com- 
 mercial pursuits. If a man sells a manufactured article of inferior character he 
 is easily detected, and it is possible to make him amenable to a written law. But 
 with the product of men's brains no such exact determination can be made, and 
 therefore each profession is held accountable to an unwritten law, which it is the 
 bounden duty of that profession to enforce. 
 
 Among those laws which are common to all the professions is that which pro- 
 hibits advertising, and all the usual business methods of trade. There must be a 
 line of demarcation drawn somewhere, and it is at this point. The business 
 methods of trade must not be followed if one would have a position in a profession. 
 
 It is impossible to formulate a complete code for the regulation of the conduct 
 of a professional man, because professional conduct must be prompted by an 
 innate professional spirit, and what under one condition might be proper, under 
 different circumstances becomes entirely unprofessional. 
 
 The fact that dentistry as practiced to-day comprises so much of mere handicraft 
 and manual labor, makes it difficult always to determine what is true professional 
 conduct with us, but this we must accept if we would be classed with professional 
 men : whatever is peculiar to trade must be eliminated. We must cease to be 
 mere manufacturers, ready to seize upon any pretext to obtain or to control 
 patronage ; we must frown upon all attempts to monopolize methods and deprive 
 our brother-practitioners of needed facilities and knowledge ; we must forsake the 
 methods and ethics of trade, or we must drop to its level. We cannot be profes- 
 sional men and tradesmen at the same time. We must belong to either one class 
 or the other. The other professions cannot and will not, without self-destruction, 
 acknowledge a branch which is not actuated by pure professional instincts and 
 feeling, and which does not sedulously strive to maintain a high professional 
 standing. 
 
 Hoping that the coming meeting will serve to make more plain the line between 
 professional and unprofessional conduct, 
 
 I am most truly yours, W. C. Barrett. 
 
 Mr. President, I have heard it urged as a reason for the study of 
 medicine that it offered full opportunity for the free development of 
 all the qualities of the heart, hand, and brain, thus affording an 
 atmosphere that would produce the highest style of man. And here 
 let me quote these words on the purpose of a nation : " For in our 
 
23 
 
 modern thought the nation is the making place of man. Not by 
 the traditions of its history, nor by the splendor of its corporate 
 achievements, nor by the abstract excellencies of its constitution, 
 but by its fitness to make men, to beget and educate human 
 character, to contribute to the complete humanity, the perfect man 
 that is to be, by this alone each nation must be judged to-day. . ." 
 " Showus your man, land cries to land." 
 
 As of a nation, so also of a profession. Not by our degrees and 
 titles, nor recognition by medical gentlemen or medical associations, 
 nor by education, and a special advance in any one field, alone, but 
 by bringing our whole profession into the atmosphere that forms 
 and maintains liberal professions of whatever name, so that we too 
 can show our man. " For the real value" [of a profession like] •' a 
 country, must be measured in scales more delicate than the balance 
 of trade. . . . " " On a map of the world you can cover Judea 
 with your thumb, Athens with a finger-tip, and neither of them figures 
 in the ' Price Current,' but they still lord it in the thought and 
 action of every civilized man." 
 
 No profession, however useful, can be great or held in honor that 
 does not produce manhood. 
 
 Let us be thankful that as we take our way with the Eubber Com- 
 pany of odious memory behind, with the threatenings of the Tooth 
 Crown Company before us, with patented instruments and opera- 
 tions and proprietary materials and " The Combination" on either 
 side, with Judas forever in our midst, that dentistry can answer when 
 called with the name of Barnum, and I would that every dental 
 school in the country had a tablet to his memory. 
 
 The minds of us all rise at times above the question of the polish 
 of instruments or the number of square miles covered by show- 
 cases, to consider in what form we shall leave our profession to 
 those who come after us. 
 
 The Chinese potter, as he molds the clay prepared for him by his 
 father, neglects not in intervals of his toil to prepare other for the 
 son that is to follow him. Let us so mold what is to be the profes- 
 sion of the future, by daily guarding the practice of our profession, 
 that no future Templar landing on our shore shall find the dentist 
 working with a collar soldered about his neck, although of beautiful 
 workmanship and nickel-plated, bearing on it the inscription, 
 " Wamba, the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric of Eotherwood." 
 
■'mm 
 
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