Samuel Stockton White
Samuel Stockton White (born June 19, 1822 in Hulmeville , Pennsylvania , † December 30, 1879 in Paris ) was an American inventor , dentist , science writer and founder of the largest dental factory in the world at the time. With his innovations, he made a decisive contribution to the history of dentistry and was one of the outstanding personalities in the history of dentistry .
Life
SS White was the son of William Rose White and Mary Stockton. He came to Philadelphia in 1836 at the age of 14 . At the age of 21, in 1843, White practiced dentistry with his uncle Samuel Wesley Stockton and oversaw his artificial teeth production department (his uncle was a pioneer in the manufacture of ceramic teeth). His father and uncle made and sold artificial teeth. For the production of the prosthetic teeth from porcelain, casting molds were made by hand.
SS White was the chairman of the American Dental Association (ADA). In this capacity, he met Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War (1861-1865) to propose to him the establishment of a dental care for the soldiers of the Union . The background was that every soldier had to have at least six upper and six lower teeth in order to be able to hold and tear open the end of the paper cartridge with his teeth when loading his rifle . Due to logistical difficulties, however, nothing came of his proposal in the end.
In November 1879, White had an episodic cerebral circulatory disorder which his doctors had diagnosed as "... a slight attack of congestion of the brain" (encephalemia). They then ordered him to travel to Europe to recover from work. A second attack, from which he did not recover, occurred shortly before Christmas in Paris, where he died shortly afterwards at the age of 57 on December 30, 1879. In the year of his death, 1879, White had a fortune of $ 1.5 million.
Companies
The porcelain teeth were introduced to the USA in 1817 by the French dentist AA Planteau. The well-known American artist Charles Peale (1741–1847) began to burn porcelain teeth in Philadelphia in 1822. Samuel Stockton also began making porcelain teeth commercially in Philadelphia around 1825. Samuel Stockton White was his nephew, who then managed to further improve the artificial teeth and to market them on a large scale.
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In 1844, after five years of apprenticeship as a dentist and dental manufacturer, White founded his own dental factory in central Philadelphia at 116 North Seventh Street: the SS White Company . His production department was on the first floor and his dental practice on the ground floor. Over the years, however, White reduced his dental practice more and more in favor of his company, which manufactured porcelain teeth and, from 1860, also dental instruments. The company started its work with only three employees. It produced porcelain teeth , dental drills ( rotating dental instruments ), dental instruments and dental treatment units (e.g. the SS White's Elevating Chair , patented in 1878 ) and later became the largest dental company in the world. White's porcelain teeth set the world's leading standard for porcelain teeth in the 19th century.
An employee of the company, Dr. Eli T. Starr (1834–1904), added flexible shafts for the high-speed range into the company's dental machines (for the SS White calbel engine ) in 1874 . In 1874 he was granted US Patent No. 158,325 for his invention. This flexible shaft was so successful that White bought additional patents to improve the flexible shaft. The flexible shaft was initially only marketed as a drive for dental drills. White then realized that it could not only be used sensibly in the dental sector, but also in other trades, products and branches of industry. Over the next several decades, his dental factory grew to become the largest dental company in the world, with branches in New York , Boston and Chicago . In addition to English, his catalogs were also published in Spanish, French and German. The company became a public company ( SS White Dental Manufacturing Company ) in 1881 with factories in Philadelphia and Staten Island, New York (this large New York factory had been acquired by the Johnston Bros .; it later functioned as SS White Castle Manufacturing for production of dental instruments and the extraction of medical gases ). At the end of the 19th century, SS White Dental Manufacturing Company was the world's largest manufacturer of dental instruments.
Numerous sales offices were opened. Initially, however, only four retail dental stores were opened (New York (1846), Boston (1850), Brooklyn (1852), Chicago (1858)) to improve sales and communication with dentist customers. Since the demand could not be satisfied in this way, the company then sold through wholesalers who were able to reach many more dentists in the area and also offered a service. There were sales offices in Atlanta (1891), New Orleans , Cincinnati , San Francisco , Los Angeles , Nashville , Minneapolis and Omaha , among others . There were foreign missions in Berlin (1897), Saint Petersburg (1899), Toronto, London, Paris, Japan and Australia.
The subsidiary SS White Technologies, Inc. also produced flexible shafts for all possible applications in industry. These shafts were used, for example, from 1915 to drive speedometers in vehicles. In the 1920s, the company set up a manufacturing facility in north London, mainly to build speedometer shafts for Ford. Even today, SS White Technologies, Inc. specializes in the production of flexible shafts for a wide variety of industries and applications, in particular for vehicle and aircraft construction. There is also the company SS White Bur (for dental drills). The subsidiary SS White Industrial was renamed SS White Technologies UK .
In 1968 the SS White company was taken over by Pennsalt , which split the company into a dental division and an industrial division.
The SS White Dental Manufacturing Company developed the world's first electric drive for rotating instruments in the dental field in 1870. The manufacture of porcelain teeth was discontinued in 1937. In 1947, the successor company SS White Burs introduced the first rotary dental hard metal instruments ( tungsten carbide ).
The SS White Company gave the The Dental News Letter out, one of the first dental journals. As their successor, White founded the dental magazine "The Dental Cosmos" together with renowned dentists in 1859, which over time has developed into a leading magazine for the dental trade. It was included in the prestigious Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA) in 1939, the journal of the American Dental Association .
His classmate and friend Thomas W. Evans , who later became Napoleon III's personal dentist . introduced White's innovative technology in Europe, such as treatment units with the Doriot linkage . White was also able to obtain materials from Europe through Evans that were not available in the US.
Honors
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The company's porcelain teeth were recognized as outstanding at the world's first global dental fair in London (Crystal Palace Exposition) in 1851 and also at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876. White received an honorary doctorate in 1853 in recognition of his contributions to the dental profession and the manufacture and improvement of porcelain teeth of the Philadelphia College of Dental Surgery .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dental Patent: 1878 - SS White's Elevating Chair ( Memento of April 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | White, Samuel Stockton |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American inventor, dentist, and science writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 19, 1822 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hulmeville , Pennsylvania |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 30, 1879 |
| Place of death | Paris |