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The Aggravating Alloy: Mercury Amalgam’S Role In The Relationship Between The Educated And Non-Educated Dental Professional In The Nineteenth Century, Gracen Dunn

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

In the early 1830’s, a pair of European ‘dentists’ brought a novel material for filling teeth into the United States. It was far less expensive and far easier to use than competing materials. This new potential ease at which some could practice dentistry put pressure on a situation of conflict between the educated dental professional, and the uneducated dentist. Quacks were the bane of the existence of an educated, gentleman dentist. They were openly condemned in private circles and in the press but the dental ‘charlatan’ was not the only person in the line of fire. Those who used mercury …