The Progress of the Research Commission of the National Dental Association

The research department is giving support to the solving of metallurgical problems, and I think I am justified in telling you that one third of the platinum used in the world is used in the practice and art of dentistry; and do you realize that for the dental profession it amounts to $2,500,000 annually? If we would utilize the opportunity and the information we have on the tungsten product which has been developed through our Research Commission, it would result in great benefit and good to the dental profession. This metal is six times as strong as iridium platinum; it has a melting point nearly twice as high as that of platinum; its elasticity is twice as great as that of steel. It has a hardness so much greater than that of steel that the management of the General Electric Company is responsible for the statement that one tungsten point will outwear two hundred steel points. It is a metal that does not lose its elasticity when you heat it. This metal is available for any man in this room for use in making posts for crowns and for casting bridges upon. It is so stiff and rigid that you can make a framework of it and cast about it and control the contraction that will take place in casting a bridge with its abutments, all at the same time. You may use it for orthodontia appliances, either by the method which has been presented by Dr. Robinson or by the standard methods.

Relative to the application of the metal in orthodontia appliances, I am advised that it is destined to supplant largely the metals that are in use up to this time for orthodontic work. With its greater elasticity, you can make attachments to it with hard gold solder. It has the property of enormous strength; it does not break off like clasp metal wires by crystallization. You may use wire that is so much smaller that it seems incredible for it to accomplish the work it does.

Any dentist who will write to the commission can get the metal. We are furnishing it to the profession at what it costs us to produce it, and ultimately the manufacturers will make it. The selling price is virtually one sixth of that of platinum for the same weight.

In the last two or three months our research department has been able to furnish the profession enough tungsten to supplant the use of platinum to go far toward paying for the research expense that the commission has gone to for that particular line of research work. (Applause.)

There are only a few who know about it, because you have not read the recent issues of the Journal of the National Dental Association with reference to the research work we have been doing in regard to this metal.

As to palladium, it requires no special preparation. Any man can send to the American Platinum Works, New Jersey, and buy palladium for $48 an ounce. You can get twice the bulk for the same weight that you can with platinum. You can make it equivalent to platinum at $26 an ounce.