stale and unprofitable, our readers will perhaps be quite content with an extract.-ED. B. J. D. S.

The number of men who registered up to August, 1879, as Dentists in the United Kingdom, was 5289-double the number contemplated by the gentlemen who were the founders of the Act of Parliament of 1878. About five hundred names were challenged by the British Dental Association. It was chiefly to consider this challenge that the Medical Council met. And what an antagonistic clashing there was of common sense and law! There were not wanting evidences that some of the leading legal luminaries of the land had been knocking their heads together to interpret the meaning of this and that phrase of the Act, and even then the Council afforded proof of the truth of the old saying, that the least common of all kinds of sense extant is common sense. The Act has a great deal to say about the rights of a bona fide Dentist, which rights must not be infringed on. He must be carefully guardeda hedge is placed around him, and he is as carefully petted as Satan (with a characteristic disregard of truth) contended Job was. But these wise-acres in the Council had to be told by the lawyers what a bonâ fide Dentist is. To them he is a myth. We may each of us form an opinion as to the particular kind of look and standing this myth has; but individual opinions are not enough. What did the framers of the Act and the House of Common understand him to be? To get at this the Council must ask the AttorneyGeneral and other great lawyers. These men, whose heads are too full of the contents of law tomes to be able to hold anything else, have come to the opinion that a bona fide Dentist is a man who pulls teeth. So long as a man can prove that he has pulled teeth, and that he is sometimes engaged in that work, he is accepted as a bona fide Dentist. So say the lawyers, and the Medical Council have accepted the dictum and acted on it. Thus the Register is to remain unpurged. Thus, despite the law, there will be kept on it the names of hundreds of persons who are essentially hairdressers, but perhaps in practice as chemists, without any licence for that even.

I must admit that it pains me to write for the readers of the Miscellany' such humiliating facts concerning this country and its Dental standing. No one-not even those who are the most ardent and impatient reformers-expected that so great a reform as is contemplated by this Act of Parliament would be carried into effect at once. It could not be prevented that several hundreds of the men who

would register as Dentists prior to the enforcement of the new law would be a long way below the desired standard. But it was hoped that this number would be reduced to a minimum-that some sensible discrimination would be exercised in excluding men who made barefaced and fraudulent claims to be registered-that our high legal authorities would not go over bodily to the side of these interlopers. No one would insinuate that the Attorney-General and the other lawyers had been bribed, but certainly they could not have played more into the hands of barbers and tinkers if there had actually been money placed where it would do the most good-to adopt an American phrase.

But let it not be assumed that all the members of the Medical Council were in favour of disregarding the challenge of the Dental Association. Some of them raised their voices against it with vigour, and they have the thanks of the profession for it. It is gratifying to find that the Dentist's work is not regarded by the people nor by the members of of the medical faculty as of the inconsequential character that it was years ago. Sir William Gull, for example, said at the meeting of the Council, that he should be sorry if it went forth to the world that they, as medical men, had decided that Dentistry was nothing but the work of extracting teeth. He regarded it as one of the chief functions of Dentistry to preserve teeth. That is well; and I hope the Council agree with him. It would have been much better, though, if they had acted on the principle contained in his words. John Bull is sometimes far too tenacious of what he erroneously calls "rights of individuals." He would destroy a thousand Russians for molesting one Englishman, and he often carries out this principle a little too far. He will let hundreds of patients suffer for their lifetimes rather than stop the freaks of one barber who professes to be a Dentist. If Dentists' patients were all Russians, or Boers, or Afghans, we could understand it-then John Bull would be logical in letting them be injured by English pseudoDentists. But he is very foolish to allow men, boys and apprentices, who have no claims to be regarded as Dentists, to be backed up by the law in their work of molestation of the happiness and comfort of the patients who are misled by their pretensions. I am in favour of observing men's rights-vested and other rights-but no man has a right to do wrong. Obviously it is wrong to pull out a tooth, which, if properly filled, would last a lifetime. This is done every day by these underlings who have excited the pity of the lawyers, and whose falsely-called rights are so carefully observed. Am I not correct, then, in my asseveration that

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men who are incompetent should be prevented by the strong hand of the law from practising Dentistry, even if they have for a few years past beguiled their time and troubled the world by exercising their strength in wielding the forceps?

Dental News and Critical Reports.

THE GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL.

THE usual annual session of the General Medical Council began on April 26th and lasted five days. The greater part of the time was occupied by discussions on the preliminary examinations in general education which medical and Dental students are required to pass before entering on their professional studies, but some important Dental business was also transacted. In his opening address the President referred to this in the following terms:

"Letters of importance from Mr. Tomes and others will be laid before you. In the construction of the Dentists' Register a difficulty arose with regard to the real fitness of many persons who professed to be in practice and to possess a legal qualification as Dentists. This became at once a question of legal interpretation of an existing Act rather than one which this Council has at heart-namely, the education and professional character of registered Dentists. When the Council met in February for purposes connected with the Dentists Act only, it decided in accordance with the legal opinions laid before them, giving their judgment upon the facts as furnished to them. One of the results at which the Council had previously arrived was to exclude from the Register all titles other than those definitely stating a qualification in Dentistry. It is not to be wondered at that persons such at Mr. Tomes, a fellow of the Royal Society, and an eminent Member of the College of Surgeons, and persons who are Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons, should resent as a hardship, and even an injnry, that a title so honorable as a Fellow of the College of Surgeons of England, implying without question surgical knowledge and education of real value for the purposes of the higher problems of Dentistry, should not be entered in the Dentists' Register. On the legal advice we have, such knowledge and such title are considered not to be higher in respect of Den

tistry in the terms of the Act. If this be so, it is certainly a question for argument whether the Act should not be amended. I do not presume to offer an opinion that the Council would act illegally if it inserted such titles as higher titles, nor to say that a penalty would accrue if it did. The value of co-called higher titles has been made the subject of a question in the House of Commons, and will doubtless be considered at some future occasion. A motion will be brought before you on this subject so far as it affects the Dentists Act."

This Dental business was entered upon on Thursday the 28th. Dr. Haldane having been elected a member of the Dental Committee in the place of the late Dr. Andrew Wood, the following letter from the Secretary of the British Dental Association was read and ordered to be entered on the minutes:

12, George Street, Hanover Square; Feb. 9th, 1881.

DEAR SIR,-I herewith enclose a copy of a resolution passed at a meeting of the Representative Board of the British Dental Association, and respectfully request you to bring it before the Council through the ordinary channel. I am, dear sir, yours very truly, JAMES SMITH TURNER, Hon. Sec. B. D. A.

To W. J. C. MILLER, Esq., B.A.,

Registrar to the General Medical Council.

(Enclosed) "Extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Representative Board of the British Dental Association held on Monday, February 7th, 1881, Vice-President, Thomas Underwood, Esq., in the chair:

"Resolved unanimously: That the Representative Board of the British Dental Association beg respectfully to thank the General Medical Council for the prompt consideration it has given to the elucidation of certain provisions of the Dentists Act upon the interpretation of which considerable difference of opinion prevails.-(Signed) JAMES SMITH TURNER, Hon. Sec. B. D. A.”

The REGISTRAR then proceeded to read applications (mostly in terms of one or other of the two subjoined forms) from the following registered Dentists, who also hold medical or surgical qualifications, requesting that such qualifications be added to their descriptions in the Dentists' Register:-J. Ackery, R. Barnett, A. W. Barrett, W. C. S. Bennett, E. G. Betts, C. H. Bromley, H. Campion, F. Canton, A. Coleman, D. Corbett, D. Corbett, jun., F. Ewbank, J. A. Fothergill, A. Gibbings, D. W. Hogue,

W. A. Hunt, S. J. Hutchinson, T. T. Lyons, F. McClean, A. G. Medwin, H. Moon, P. Orphoot, G. S. Penny, E. Randell, H. Rogers, T. A. Rogers, E. Saunders, J. Tomes, J. S. Turner, R. H. Woodhouse.

(a) SIR,-On the ground that the diploma of membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England both expresses and implies the possession of a degree of surgical knowledge, applicable in the practice of Dental Surgery, and, therefore, in this regard of Dental Surgery, higher than is required to obtain a certificate of fitness under the Dentists Act, I request you will insert with my name in the first column of the Dentists' Register the letters M.R.C.S. Eng., indicating the aforesaid membership, as an additional qualification in the forthcoming and subsequent issues of the Dentists' Register.

I beg to refer you to the Medical Register for evidence of my possession of the above-named qualifications. I rest my claim to the entry of this additional qualification in the Dentists' Register on Sect. 11, Clause 6, of the Dentists Act; and on the opinion 2 C of the Solicitor-General and Mr. Muir Mackenzie, published in the minutes of the Medical Council, to both of which I beg to direct your attention. J. TOMES.

W. J. MILLER, Esq., B.A.,

Registrar of the British Medical Council.

(3) SIR,-On referring to the opinions of counsel (Farrer Herschel and Montague Muir Mackenzie, opinion C) published in the minutes of the Medical Council, I find it therein stated "That the only additional qualifications which should appear on the Register are those which express or imply fitness to practise Dentistry. If a candidate for registration desires to have such additional qualification registered we think that the Council can certainly require proof of such qualifications by the production of the necessary diploma, degree, or licence."

I also find in Section 11, Clause 6, of the Dentists Act that the Medical Council has power to "revoke or vary' the registration of additional diplomas.

I also find from the Dentists Act that the possession of a surgical or medical diploma, duly registered in the Medical Register, of itself, entitles a man to practise Dental Surgery, although not sufficient alone to give its holder a position on the Dentists' Register.

The possession of a surgical diploma in addition to a Dental one cannot be regarded as otherwise than an additional qualification of fitness to practise Dentistry, and on