Every dentist who has ever given any thought to the development of his profession must have realized the growing necessity for an accessible and authoritative history of the dental art. The early efforts in this direction by Duval, Fitch, Carabelli, Snell, Linderer, Harris, and others, followed in this country by the more recent essays of Perine, Dexter, and Cigrand, are out of print and difficult to obtain. The _Geschichte der Zahnheilkunde_, by Geist-Jacobi, and _Notice sur l’Histoire de l’Art Dentaire_, by Lemerle, have given to the practitioners of Germany and France valuable information which the English-speaking dentist has often sadly lacked. Realizing this situation, at the first meeting of the National Dental Association, the late Dr. R. Finley Hunt offered the resolution: “That a Committee of Three be appointed by the President to report at the next annual meeting a measure looking to the preparation of a _full history_ of the Dental Profession.” After a careful consideration of the subject, this committee reluctantly concluded that, “whereas a complete history of dentistry may some day be the result of the effort now being made, this Association must confine its first attempts to the history of dentistry in America.” In a letter to the committee the late Dr. W. D. Miller said: “Of course, a universal history of dentistry would be very interesting and valuable, but its compilation would naturally cost an immense amount of labor.” Aside from this, it did not seem possible that the data for a proper history of the early development of the dental art in Africa and Europe could be collected by an association working in America. After several years of what may have seemed a policy of masterly inactivity the unexpected happened, and the committee was able to report at the Buffalo meeting of the Association that Dr. Vincenzo Guerini, of Naples, Italy, had written a history of dentistry from the earliest times to the beginning of the nineteenth century, and that this work, translated into English and fully revised, had been generously placed in the hands of the committee for publication under the auspices of the National Dental Association, in token of the distinguished author’s appreciation of American dental development. The Association, deeply sensible of this high compliment, and fully realizing this opportunity for accomplishing a purpose which had hitherto seemed impossible, gladly arranged for the publication of the book. After the delay incidental to the production of a work of this character, and the necessary subscribers being obtained, this exhaustive history of early dentistry, by the greatest authority on that subject in the world, is presented for the serious consideration of the thoughtful and studious members of the profession.