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Transaction. New Series | Odontological Society of Great Britain (1871)
Transaction New Series Odontological Society of Great Britain - 1871 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: On the Position of Dental Surgery as a Profession. By Charles James Fox, M.R.C.S., L.D.S. Mr. President And Gentlemen,— A Few days ago, when conversing wit... more »h an old and much-respected Dental practitioner, I said, " You must come and hear my views on Monday next at the Society." He asked, " What is the title of your paper?" "On the Position of Dental Surgery as a Profession." " You surely," he exclaimed, " do not call our occupation a profession." " Undoubtedly I do," I replied, " when properly followed." But I confess I was somewhat startled to find that, instead of having simply to review the position of the profession, I should have to begin by making good the assertion that it was a profession at all. When I first offered to read this paper before the Odontological Society, it never occurred to me that any proof was needed that Dental Surgery, or, if you will, Dentistry, could be regarded as anything bat a profession. We are so in the habit of meeting one another on high professional grounds, of seeing amongst us gentlemen of high professional repute, of hearing papers read to us that could be considered as no other thanpapers on purely professional subjects, that we have all come to consider ourselves, whether qualified or not, still honestly and sincerely members of a profession. But my friend, to whom I first alluded, is not a member of our pleasant company, and has, therefore, not had the opportunity of acquiring that amount of self-respect which would induce us to seek to ennoble the calling we follow rather than to degrade it, even in speech, from the ranks of the professions. But yet I feel that this gentleman's case, isolated as he is from companionship with his brother practitioners, really represents the position held by hundreds of our brethren in the provin...« less