American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics
Classic articlePrinciples of retention in orthodontia☆
Section snippets
Importance of permanent retention
One of the most prominent orthodontists of New York City said to me, in substance, a few months ago, that the practice of orthodontia was beginning to be feared by many of our best orthodontists as more or less of a failure. And when I asked him why, he said: “Because it is impossible to permanently retain a very large proportion of our regulated cases.”
If this statement is true, coming as it did from one who is in close touch with the pulse of his profession, I must say that I regard it as one
Difficulties of permanent retention
I think it will be admitted that our greatest difficulties in permanency of retention are found among the very cases which seem to be the most necessary to correct. I refer to those decided disto-mesial occlusal malrelations of the buccal teeth in Classes II and III in which are found those pronounced dentofacial protrusions and retrusions which we are always more than anxious to permanently correct.
In Class I malocclusion, in which by far the greatest variety of irregularities arise, nearly
The author's early experience
In the winter of 1891 and 1892, I commenced the exclusive practice of orthodontia in Chicago. Previous to that, for nearly twenty-five years, I was engaged in the general practice of dentistry in Jackson, Michigan. During the later years of that time I had gained quite a reputation as an orthodontist through papers which I had read before prominent societies. I had even given a clinic before the First District Dental Society of New York City on “the Angle System of Orthodontia,” and I had also
The normal occlusion dogma
Before leaving this subject, I must beg your indulgence for a few movments in a little wider consideration of the radical formula that “in all cases the dentures should be placed in normal occlusion without the loss of a single tooth or its substitute.” I believe that the day is not far distant when that teaching and its invariable application will be regarded as one of the great retarding forces of orthodontia, and in its place will come a rational scientific common sense orthodontia, stripped