Hurlock, Joseph
A Practical Treatise upon Dentition
Estimate: £1,000 - £1,500
Auction: 18 June 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
or, the Breeding of Teeth in Children. London: for the author, 1742. First edition, 8vo, xxiv 285 [7] pp., contemporary sprinkled calf, rebacked to style [Garrison-Morton 3672]
Provenance
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (ink-stamp to title-page; Arthur Jacob bequest stamp dated 1871 to front free endpaper).
Footnote
The second dedicated book on dentistry in English, ‘the first work since Hippocrates to be devoted to dentition’ (Rendle-Short, The Father of Child Care, 1966, p. 33), and an important early example of paediatric literature generally. A Practical Treatise was preceded in English only by The Operator for Teeth, an obscure work printed in York in 1685 and now known to be by one Charles Allen. 'As far as English dental literature is concerned, it began with Joseph Hurlock in 1742. Hurlock was a strong advocate of lancing the gums of Infants to permit teeth to erupt more readily and thus prevent convulsions. His treatise was a plea for parents and nurses to allow him to carry out this procedure. Hurlock was a keen observer of dental conditions then found in children, noticing that the havoc wrought by caries in deciduous teeth was undoubtedly due to diet, and recommended that such youngsters be sent to the country where fresh air and better food could be obtained' (Weinberger, An Introduction to the History of Dentistry, 1948, vol. 1, p. 330).