Citation

Pollock RA. Craniomaxillofac. Trauma Reconstr. 2011; 4(2): 85-90.

Affiliation

University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Lexington, Kentucky.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Georg Thieme Verlag)

DOI

10.1055/s-0031-1279667

PMID

22655119

Abstract

James Baxter Bean published a series of articles in the Southern Dental Examiner in 1862 describing his work with "plaster and its manipulations." This early experience included a new way of managing jaw fractures, with customized splints uniquely based on pretraumatic occlusion. Bean's oral splints and their method of construction, using an articulator, became the standard of care in the Atlanta region during the American Civil War and, by 1864, throughout The Confederacy. In short course, Bean's approach also swept The Union, following in large part the efforts of a colleague in the North, T.B. Gunning. Thus, what began in the early 1860s in a dental laboratory in the southeast swept the continental United States and revolutionized management of jaw-fractures during, and immediately after, the American Civil War.

Language: en