1860 DENTISTRY IN WILD WEST. Dentures Swallowed, Oral Surgery on "Negroes," Chloroform Deaths.

Inexplicably scarce, the present work was produced to train dentists who were sent en masse to populate the new towns of the Westward Expansion. Dentists were so core a feature of the new towns necessaries, that they appear in "Westerns" from the very beginning, alongside other stock characters, i.e. sheriffs, brothel owners, preachers, traveling salesmen, and bartenders. 

No examples in the auction record and only a couple single issues in the trade, priced according to the scarcity.

Contents include: New Fusible Allows by B. Wood; Dental Surgery by P. G. C. Hunt; Gutta Percha for Separating and Regulating Teeth by B. Wood; A New Method of Using Vulcanite by P. G. C. Hunt; Vulcanite Ideas; Discussions of the Kentucky State Dental Association; Buccal Inflammations - Diseases of Crystal and Glass Cutters; Dental Fistulas; Artificial Dentures by Dr. John Allen; Case of Abscess of Parotid Gland; Use of Chloroform and Aconite in Neuralgia; A Fatality from Chloroform; Adventure with the File by George S. Fouke; Appointment of Delegates to the Mississippi Dental Association; Selection and Arrangement of Teeth in Constructing Dental Substitutes by W. Calvert; Fang Filling - Read at a Meeting of the Mad River Valley Society by A. A. Blount; Fang-Filling and Treatment of the Alveolar Abscess by B. A. Rose; Account of the Mad River Valley Dental Society; Reforms in Medical Education; Treatment of Neuralgia by Subcutaneous Injection by A. Ruppaner; Swallowing Several Teeth Attached to a Plate with Safe Passage through the Bowels; The Buccal Secretions; Sensitive Dentine bty George F. Foote; The Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, and Remedial Treatment of the Fifth Pair of Nerves by J. H. M'Quillen; The Oneness of Dentistry; A Critic Criticized; Development of the Teeth of Cattle and the Mode of Ascertaining their Age by the Same; Province of the Dentist by J. Taft; Purple of Cassius by William Calvert; Hypertrophy; Biographical Sketch of Dr. Alvin Blakesley of Utica [with frontis portrait]; A Rare Form of Fracture of the Lower Jaw Treated by a Novel Method by E. J. Fountain; Ether and Chloroform; Defective Assimilation in Infants - Its Prevention and Treatment by Dr. Routh; Sulphuric Ether as a Substitute for Chloroform; More Deaths from Chloroform; Treating and Capping Exposed Nerves; 

Of special note, two fine engraved full size illustrations of "Blackman's Case of Osteo Sarcoma of Lower Jaw," pre and post operation. A rare early account of surgery on a person of color in the United States, performed, ironically, by George C. Blackman on Lemuel Hinedon at St. John's Hospital in Cincinnati. It is unclear whether it was an act of compassion or "research." Regardless, the editors seem pleased with the results, and seem to show the surgery as a piece of social uplift by the construction of the pre-surgery engravings in traditional southern slave's best garb and the after engraving in full New England suit. Interestingly, the author references other "negro" surgery literature, as though perhaps expecting surgery to function differently, etc. 

Taft, J. and George Watt [eds.]. The Dental Register of the West. Cincinnati. J. T. Toland, Publsiher, 38 West Street. 1860. 367pp.

A good - example. Textually quite good, clean and sound. Binding has taken the worst of it with part of spine lacking as shown, both boards detached.