This online version of the exhibit is comprised of four sections: Discussion material related to the display in the exhibit case. (This page.) A collection of 200 excerpted selections which accompanied the exhibit. The exhibit guide, as a PDF [364K], including most of the material given in the first two items of this list. Online only content: Sidebars A more complete collection of quotations given in full with full citations. [Forthcoming, late October 2002.] "The Toothless Genius" Dental Do's and Don'ts How to Enjoy the Tooth-Ache Prophylactic Items (Tuller)

Prophylactic Items, by R. B. Tuller

Begin at the beginning.
The beginning is with children.
The younger the better -- if they have any teeth.
How to cook a hare. First catch your hare.
How to treat a child. First catch your 'kid.'
Excuse the slang -- first catch the precious little lamb.
If you have one of your own begin on him.
Ten to one your mother-in-law knows more than you do.
Her mother told her how, and her mother told her.
A dentist is a prophet without honor in his own household -- often.
Not exactly dishonorable, but what does he know about children's teeth?
Try your knowledge and skill on somebody else's children.
About one mother in 7,000 will bring her baby to the dentist.
Isn't that so?
So they are not so easy to catch -- not even your own.
If you should be called on be prepared.
Tell the young mother that baby teeth need cleaning.
Not with a brush at first -- use a soft piece of linen.
The brush comes later; a soft one; a small one.
A small brush can get around in anyone's mouth where a large one can't. Always better.
Children properly taught will never forsake the tooth brush.
We have to educate the pa and ma first, in many instances.
Some you can hypnotize and some you cannot.
If you get them hypnotized, educate them along the whole line of prophylactics.
It will do them good and you won't get so many teeth to fill.
Can't help that, we're here to do our best for suffering humanity.
But don't be alarmed, they will take your advice and won't follow it.
Then you get them later, but you've done your duty.
You'll tell the young wife to bring that child in and have its baby teeth examined.
You'll say 'baby teeth' instead of deciduous, because she'll understand better.
She'll think you are working up 'trade,' but you have done your duty.
Some day she'll come in with a howling youngster with the howling toothache.
Pa and ma didn't sleep and the child's trouble was up to them.
And they were up to the child's trouble, and up with it.
Hot camphor and toothache drops failed to work.
Then they think of the dentist.
Please drop everything else and relieve this child.
First get him under control -- if you can.
Then clean out the cavity -- if you can.
And fill it so it never, never will give any more trouble -- if you can.
The next child will be brought around earlier in life -- maybe.
He may be too young to sit in your chair by himself.
He'll sit in mother's lap, however, and let the dentist look at his 'toofins.'
You make goo goo eyes -- at the child, not the mother.
You find, perhaps, some little pin hole pits.
Ten revolutions of the engine point -- or twenty, removes all decay.
Amalgam, tin, cement or gutta percha will quickly fill them.
There are other spots of decay, not deep pits, but superficial patches, possibly shallow pits.
If you can get them absolutely clean and dry (use chloroform on cotton, to clean) rub heated parafine into them.
Us a tape saturated with it or pellet of cotton, Heat over flame, but avoid catching fire.
Other places may be treated with nitrate of silver.
It will make every atom of decay black as a coal.
It will, however, check decay and keep immune for some time.
You must judge of advisability of this treatment with its intense blackness.
It will check decay and head off trouble for little ones when nothing else can be done.
Use a silver wire. Put a drop of nitric acid on mixing slab.
Touch end of wire to it and then to spot, or cavity, of decay, first drying.
Wipe off surplus, if any. Don't let wire come in contact with anything you don't want stained.
It don't get immediately black, but will sure enough.
Does such black look worse than dark, brown decay?
Or black cement or amalgam often used in children's teeth?
A wise dentist will decide wisely what is best to do in each particular case.
He should know how, so if he can't do one thing he can do another.
Look at next month's items.
If you can add anything practical to our items, send it along.

Tuller, R.B. Prophylactic Items. American Dental Journal 1902:75-77.

Prophylaxis ought to be preached six days in the week.
Ought to be practiced seven days -- several times a day.
And there's no breaking the Sabbath in that.
'Cleanliness is next to Godliness.'
I can't give the exact book, chapter and verse in Scripture, but it is gospel truth.
You eat three meals a day -- if you can get them.
Some people can't get so many. That's the curse of being poor.
Some people have four or five meals, regular, and often top off with a banquet late at night.
That's the curse of being rich.
I've known men, too, on ten a week, who go out after the theater and indulge in a 'bottle and a bird' -- with her, of course.
That's the curse of a champagne appetite with a suit income.
But what I'm getting at is this:
Use the tooth brush after each meal.
Of course no dentist neglects to.
But preach it to your patients.
Yes, brush after each meal, and one to grow on.
The one to grow on just before retiring. Why?
Because from that time on to breakfast the mouth will be free from food contaminations.
'Food contaminations' is good.
And, paradoxically, they are bad.
They are bad when left too long.
It takes several hours for food to ferment in the mouth.
Fermentation produces acid.
Acid attacks the teeth.
The attack is more or less interrupted during the day.
So we have a proviso for lazy people:
If teeth are brushed but one a day, let it be at bedtime.
Or, at least, after the last meal.
O, yes, they may brush them in the morning, too.
The mouth will feel better, and breakfast will be enjoyed more.
It is a good practice, anyway.
There are some deleterious things going on over night.
Especially from overloaded stomachs.
And where food is not properly digested.
There are foul odors (gases) permeating the oral cavity.
They contaminate the viscid mucus that clings around the teeth. It is a film quite insoluble in water.
This film holds acidity between itself and the teeth.
Rinsing with water, simply, will not dislodge it.
The brush and water will not do it effectually.
Hence, tooth powder is needed.
A proper powder will mix in with the film and break it up.
Soapy dentrifices are not the best. They leave a deleterious film.
They leave a bad taste, too.
The use of finely powdered pumice once a day (morning) is good. Rinse mouth well after.
Scratch the enamel? Bosh!
We dentists all use it when we clean teeth.
Our revolving brush or rubber point rubs a hundred times more than a brush in hand does.
A test has been made on teeth out of the mouth.
Six hundred revolutions a minute of a felt wheel charged with pumice has been run against a tooth for hours and days.
The wearing away of the tooth was practically nil.
However, there are better substances than pumice for general use.
A powder composed largely of prepared chalk is good; provided other ingredients are not injurious.
There are plenty of good formulae. Can't name them here.
The brush and water alone does very well after each meal.
Use powder at night.
And especially in the morning.
A good practice at night is to use milk of magnesia after cleansing.
Rinse it about the mouth; work it between the teeth.
Don't try to wash away what adheres to teeth.
It is an ant-acid, It leaves a protecting film which remains some time.
Milk of magnesia is excellent to wash baby's teeth with.
Don't forget to tell mothers about that.
When the patient has done his best, he (or she) should visit the dentist frequently.
When nothing deleterious is in sight to the patient or any casual observer, the dentist an 'dig up' a lot in most cases.
Not real estate, but calcific deposit. Serumnal calculus.
It hides more frequently than the average dentist realizes under the free margins of the gums.
It needs to be hunted out carefully with a proper instrument.
Let me emphasize carefully.
Carefully but surely find it, and remove it.
It is a most painstaking effort if properly done.
It is too often slighted by otherwise good and careful dentists.
And then what?
Incipient stages of what will later on be pronounced pyorrhea alveolaris;
Or some other more or less correct name for a pestiferous and tenacious disease, and equally shocking to patients.
It causes the loss of more teeth than caries.
No mistake about that.
And there must be a beginning somewhere, somehow.
Aren't you often largely to blame for it, Mr. Dentist?
Think it over.
Prophylactic items and suggestions are invited.

Tuller, R.B. Prophylactic Items. American Dental Journal 1902:219-221.

About the tooth brush:
I contend for a small one. Why?
Because if teeth are brushed in the manner approved by the best authorities most brushes are too bulky and clumsy and abort the effort to some extent.
If I were making tooth brushes I would make some with but two rows of stiff bristles.
There are some 'prophylactic' brushes on the market that are all right in shape of handle and arrangement and cut of bristles, except too many rows.
They were designed by dentists who had given some thought to the matter.
Some are made with three rows of bristles -- better than four.
Two rows will do better work, and may be cleaned, sterilized and dried out better for another thing.
Brushing the teeth crosswise is not wise. Up-to-date dentists do not advise it.
It don't hurt the teeth, but does injure the gums.
Some would-be cultured people still say 'gooms. Doctah, what can I get for a good goom-wash?'
Fury! Don't it make you tired? 'Gooms' must have come from Boston, but it harrows up your feelings.
A stiff brush harrows up the gums when used in the usual crosswise manner.
This harrowing, in time, results in evils hard or quite impossible to remedy.
The gums subject to this continued wounding are eventually pushed away from the line of enamel.
Exposed necks of teeth become exceedingly sensitive frequently and also frequently decay.
There's a better way than brushing cross-wise. Brush the upper teeth downwards and the lower teeth upwards and the lower teeth upwards.
This way will not tear the gums, and food is more effectually removed from between the teeth.
And the stiff, narrow brush does this better. It is the sweeping motion that does it.
Put two brooms together and try to sweep. You'll soon find one is better.
Sweep your teeth. -- O, fudge! No, not with a broom. Who said so?
Sweep with your tooth brush and save your gums, and remove more food collections.
Some day we'll have brushes with but two rows, and they will be found better. I've had some made and tested them.
They are not on the market; so use the next best -- three rows of bristles. They are not bad.
Most any brush is better than none.
For upper teeth, lift the cheek away with back of brush and place bristles above teeth and sweep down.
For lower teeth reverse the order.
That is the way for outside and inside. Across the tops brush in all directions.
Explain it all with care to your patients and you'll render them and yourself good service.
You won't see so many gums pushing away from necks of teeth.
Tell them, too, the importance of keeping the brush clean and sterilized.
I was going to suggest a nice clean linen rag as an adjunct to the brush in cleaning teeth; but I don't like the word rag -- in connection with the teeth.
It is, however, cleaning we are talking about and not mastication.
What I want to talk about just here is a nice clean (sterilized) piece of linen or cotton.
The little inexpensive mouth napkins made up and sterilized for dentists' use are about the thing -- to be thrown away -- or burned -- after use.
You can rub your teeth cross-wise or any way with such a thing as that over the end of the finger.
Do it before brushing -- and after, too, if you like -- if a clean, fresh piece is used.
Used before, you place the finger, over each tooth on the gum and press firmly, forcing out secretions under the free edge of gums and wipe away with the napkin.
This is a sort of massaging process and is a good daily practice with the bare finger, not to mention the napkin.
The napkin removes some secretions about the teeth better than the brush, but is not advised in place of brush. Do what can be done with the cloth, even to wiping the tongue, and then use brush as already described.
The tongue should be kept clean as well as the teeth, if you want a sweet breath.
Three or four inch sterilized bandages, to be had in rolls at any drug store, will make napkins, clipped off from roll as wanted.
(Much better for baby's mouth, too, than any rag washed out in the family wash.)
After the brush, what? Floss silk, of course, to be used between the teeth where neither brush nor cloth can reach. Small rubber bands answer a like purpose.
The massaging of the gums every day, pressing out secretions at necks of teeth, serves to prevent, to considerable extent, the deposit of calcic salts which lead on to that bane of civilized humanity, pyorrhoea alveolaris. There is more in this than many of you think.
Say, isn't it a pleasure to work in a nice, sweet hygenic mouth, from sweet sixteen upwards, even, there isn't very much to do?

Tuller, R.B. Prophylactic Items. American Dental Journal 1902:251-253.