Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

the New York Athletic Club and was
affiliated with all the bodies of the Free
and Accepted Masons, inclusive of the
32d degree Scottish Rite. He was also
a member of the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows.
Dr. Fones married, October 21, 1863,
Phoebe E., daughter of Alfred S. Wright
of New York City. Their children
George, died at the age of four years
Grace ; and Dr. Alfred C. Fones.
FONES, Alfred C, D. D. S.,
Dental Surgeon.
It may be stated with emphasis that no
member of the dental profession, at least
in the State of Connecticut, has done more
to confer the benefits of the advancement
of that department of surgery upon the
people of the commonwealth than has
Dr. Alfred C. Fones, son of Dr. Civilian
and Phoebe E. (Wright) Fones, born in
Bridgeport, December 17, 1869, and who
is acknowledged by his contemporaries to
be at the very pinnacle of the profession.
The great strides in dental hygiene among
the school children of the city of Bridge-
port and later among the schools of large
communities of the State and country are
traceable to the professional foresight and
skill of Dr. Fones, who was among the
first, if not the very first, to develop the
idea of training women to become assist-
ants to dentists in prophylactic work.
How much this progressive step has
accomplished in promoting the campaign
for sanitation of the oral cavity can only
be measured by the almost phenomenal
rise in the health of the school population
and in the beneficent results of the edu-
cation in dental hygiene not only upon the
pupils themselves but also indirectly upon
the entire family at home. The vision
that Dr. Fones received a quarter of a
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
98
century ago has been concretely realized
in the state-wide adoption of prophylactic
treatment in the hands of specially trained
women in service in dental establishments
following the amendment of the State
dental law, at his request, to the effect
that women who were not graduate den-
tists might be employed in that department
of operative work. Such remarkable
results were attained by this move-
ment, that Dr. Fones was led to seek the
establishment of dental hygiene by means
of clinics among the school children of
Bridgeport. Patient and painstaking at-
tention to the line of campaign he had
marked out was finally crowned with suc-
cess. Dr. Fones is recognized as an au-
thority on this subject, and on it he has
read many papers before dental society
gatherings and prepared many articles for
magazines devoted to the profession.
Having received his elementary train-
ing and preparatory education in the
Bridgeport schools, Alfred C. Fones en-
tered the New York College of Dentistry,
whence he was graduated in the class
of 1890. He at once engaged in the
practice of his profession in association
with his honored father, who many
years before had become established
as a dentist in Bridgeport. Some of
the high lights in Dr. Fones' career have
been raised by the following incidents:
In 1900 he conceived the idea of training
women specially for prophylactic work.
He evolved a system of instrumentation
and polishing for use in his office, and
practiced it until 1905, when the lack of
proper amount of time for the work forced
him to carry out his original conviction
of the employment of a trained woman for
that work. He did so, and has had a
highly trained woman on his staff at his
office for twenty years. He has made
prophylactic treatments compulsory with