Department of Orthodontic Abstracts and Reviews

Edited byDR. EGON NEUSTADT, NEW YORK CITY

All communications concerning further Information about abstracted material and the accept­ance of articles or books for consideration In this department should be addressed to Dr. Egon

Neustadt. 133 East Fifty-Eighth Street. New York City.

Full a.nd PartiaJ Denture Oonstruction. Lee Walter Doxtater, D.D.S., formerProfessor of Crown and Bridge Prosthesis, New York Univers ity . DentalItems of Interest Publishing Company, Brooklyn, N. Y., 257 pages, 251illustrations.

In this book, the writing of which was interrupted by his death and whichwas finished by John Oppie McCall with the assistance of Doxtater's technicianand his secretary, there is presented an interesting and an intensely practicaloutline of the principles and practice of denture construction. Doxtater hadachieved a reputation in this field fully equal to that which he enjoyed in thefield of crown and bridge work. He frequently expressed his opinion that thestudies of problems in denture construction being made by research workers,while of great value, had tended to confuse the general practitioner becauseof expression of diverse views and had created the feeling that denture workis more complicated than it actually is. This book is his attempt to presentthe fundamentally sound technics in as simple a form as possible. He has alsopresented a special technic, still further simplified, for the dentist who, undercertain conditions, must reduce his fees below normal level. The book shouldtherefore fill a long-felt need.

Outstanding in this book are the author's clear and detailed description oftechnic and the voluminous illustration of the successive steps in the variousprocedures he presented. If anything short of personal demonstration couldserve to teach the methods he advocated, this book should so serve.

Doxtater not only presented the te chnics of impression taking, prepara­tion and mounting of casts and the other steps in denture construction, in sucha manner that the mechanics of this phase of practice could be readily fol­lowed, but he gave considerable attention to the question of esthetics. Thishe rightly held to be an extremely important component of satisfactory dentureservice. This aspect of his subject he presented as painstakingly as its impor­tance warrants, giving detailed instructions for sele ction of teeth, their ar­rangement, staining, etc.

A unique feature of his technic is his management of the troublesomeproblem of the impression for the full lower denture. Briefly, he advises con­structing the lower denture on a cast obtained from a snap compound impres­sion, and upon completion of the denture, resorting to immediate rebasing,utilizing the denture and the occlusion already established for providing theconditions needed to dev elop a satisfactory impression and cast.

The book is a fitting companion to his well-known Modern Procedures inCrown and Bridge Work, both in the soundness of the theory and practice andin physical make-up. It is profusely illustrated, all technics being shown stepby step, and is carefully and fully indexed.

E .N.544