Eisen-Suppressed-Inventions-and-other-Discoveries-True-Stories-of ...

48 Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries
by the Crawcour brothers in 1833. They had a very strong,
effective advertising campaign that promised to save decayed
teeth by filling them without pain in minutes. The Crawcours
were considered unethical charlatans by many medical-dentists.
They removed gold fillings and replaced them with mercuryamalgams.
They did not dry decayed teeth or even remove the
decay before they packed the hole. There were even some
reports of their packing amalgam between teeth when there
were no cavities at all. This began the first amalgam war.
The amalgam war was the war between the craftsman idea
of ease of manipulation and the medical intent to avoid the
danger of systemic mercurial poisoning. Mercury was clearly
known to be poisonous by the physicians in the 1830s.
In 1845, the American Society of Dental Surgeons banned
the use of (mercury) silver-amalgams, making the members
sign a pledge of non-use and promise to oppose its use under
any circumstances or be expelled from the Society. Remember,
this Society was restricted to medical-dentists.
A great number of craftsmen-dentists picked up the use
of silver-amalgam. They were not concerned with the medical
ramifications of mercury in the human system. Anatomy,
chemistry, histology, pathology and physiology were considered
irrelevant to the craftsmen-dentists. So many dentists began
using amalgam (because it was easy to use and very profitable)
that membership growth in the American Society of Dental
Surgeons (ASDS) was curtailed. The ASDS decided to rescind
their anti-amalgam resolution in 1850 in hopes of gaining more
members. But the craftsmen-dentists had already decided to
organize and associate with each other.
In 1859, a new dental organization arose composed largely
of craftsmen-dentists. It was called the American Dental
Association. The average dentist in the newly-formed ADA was
no longer one who was in sympathy with medicine. As a result,
physicians adopted an extremely adverse attitude toward the
profession. During this time, dental schools dropped courses in
physiology, pathology, and materia medica and did no anatomy
except head and neck.
In Dental Students' Magazine, October 1942, an editorial
states hopefully, "The dental profession eagerly awaits . . . their
legitimate rights as members of the healing arts." To this day,
these feelings linger.
For dentistry to step out of the 1830s and fully acknowledge
its responsibility as a healing art, it must prohibit the current use