144 ON THE VULCANITE BASE 



obtain the proper form, proportion, and sim- 

 plicity. 



I was then enabled to dispense with the pul- 

 verized soap-stone, and reduce the time of vul- 

 canizing to three hours. And the result now 

 being that four pieces out of five turned out suc- 

 cessful, I no longer hesitated to adopt the 

 system fully in my practice. 



An important and reasonable difficulty now 

 arose against its general introduction among 

 dentists in America. 



The profession shrank from introducing into 

 their workshops so ponderous and expensive an 

 apparatus, and my position as a fellow-prac- 

 titioner naturally deterred many from availing 

 themselves of the offers I made in the way of free 

 access to, and use of, my own apparatus. 



Another difficulty arose to prevent its general 

 introduction. 



The parties holding a patent for the '* vulcanite 

 material" were tenacious (and are still so) about 

 having the general vulcanizing process much 

 known, and therefore only consented that a few 

 agents might be employed — one in each of the 

 large cities — to do the vulcanizing for dentists. 



I need not add the result of such a determina- 

 tion, but trust that I have sufficiently answered the 

 frequent inquiries made in Europe as to '' why the 

 work was not, ere this, more generally adopted in 

 the United States?" 



