“This branch of the art having been but little cultivated, if not wholly abandoned by the most celebrated surgeons, their negligence has caused it to fall into the hands of persons without theory and without experience, who practise it in a haphazard fashion, guided neither by principles nor method. In Paris, it is only since 1700 that people’s eyes have become opened to this abuse. “In this town, those who intend to become dentists are now obliged to undergo an examination, but although the examiners be most learned and well versed in all the other parts of surgery, I think, if I may be allowed to express my opinion, that as they do not ordinarily themselves practise dental surgery, it would not be amiss on these occasions to admit an able and experienced dentist, who might sound the aspirant as to the difficulties which have come before him in the course of the long practice of his art, and who could communicate to them the means of surmounting them. In this way one would not have to acknowledge that the attainment of the greater part of dental experts[409] is below mediocrity. “To supply this want of instruction it would have been of great use if some able dentist, for example the late _Monsieur Carmeline_, who, in his day, practised with general applause, had made us acquainted with his mode of operating and with the knowledge acquired through the successful treatment of a great number of important cases. “What this celebrated surgeon-dentist has not done, I today dare to undertake. I shall at least afford an example of what he might have done with greater erudition and better success. “From my youth I was destined to the surgical profession; the other arts I have practised[410] have never made me lose sight of it. I was the disciple of Alexandre Poteleret, surgeon-in-chief to His Majesty’s ships, who had great experience in diseases of the mouth. To him I owe the first rudiments of the knowledge I have acquired in the surgical speciality I practise, and the progress I made under this able man gave me the emulation that has led me to further important discoveries. I have collected among different writers what seemed to me most reliable. I have frequently discussed these matters with the ablest surgeons and doctors of my acquaintance, and have neglected nothing in order to profit by their counsels and by their ideas. “The experience which I have acquired during an uninterrupted practice of more than forty years has led me insensibly to the acquirement of further knowledge and to the modification of what seemed to me defective in my earlier ideas. I offer to the public the results of my labors and of my studies, hoping that they may be of some use to those who wish to exercise the profession of surgeon-dentist.”