Dental Association at its recent meeting adopted the term periodontoclasia, while the American Academy of Periodontology tentavively inclines to pericemento clasia. Under these circumstances, in accord with the rules of philology, we have permitted the term pyorrhea to stand for the present, because, though admitted to be incomplete, it has the sanction of age, having been introduced in 1822, and because it has since then not only been constantly used by the profession in its literature, but has become the term applied generally to this common disease by the laity. Whenever the profession finally decides on anyone of the fifty-seven names of this disease which are listed in this work, future editions will be made to conform to the mandate. Whether the term pyorrhea will ever be replaced by one more exact and more desirable remains to be determined. It may possibly prove as difficult to replace as for medical men to substitute for the bastard word appendicitis the correct term scolecoiditis.

May it be suggested that the various dental societies and organizations of dental specialists select the terms pertaining to their respective subjects and definitely agree on those to be preferred, so that this may eventually lead to a standardization of our nomenclature? Suggestions and corrections pertinent to the subject will be appreciatively received. It may not be out of place here to state that some misconception exists concerning the scope of a dictionary. The editor has received a number of communications urging the insertion of arbitrarily coined words or the omission of certain terms to which objections are found. This is not within the province of the lexicographer. A dictionary is a storehouse, a reference book, a book of information. The laws of dictionary-construction require the inclusion of every word which has been used to any extent, especially. in the literature, during the preceding one hundred years, and which is thus made a part of the language. It may not be etymologically sound, it may not be desirable or useful; but the student, the litterateur, the scholar, should be able to find any word he may have seen used even in books many years out of print .

The English language contains some. 513,000 words. From a dictionary recently revised, 63,000 have been rejected as obsolete or as never having gained a sufficient foothold, so that at. present our language comprises about 450,000 words. Many of these are little used and otherwise objectionable, but such are nevertheless part of the structure of the language and may not be omitted without leaving the dictionary incomplete. The same rule applies also to a special dictionary, such as one pertaining to dentistry.

In this work, as nearly as possible, modern ideas have been incorporated. Diphthongs in such words as anesthesia and pyorrhea have been omitted, and they are written anesthesia, pyorrhea, etc. Wherever possible the hyphen has been omitted. The tendency to do this when two words are constantly used in close association meets with the approval of philologists. This is true of such words as hare-lip, cleft-lip, tooth-brush, chloro-percha, mesio-distal, and they are written harelip, cleft lip, chloropercha, mesiodistal, etc. The nonessential final e is also omitted from such words as cocain, chlorid, morphin, dentin, etc.

A pronounced desire was expressed at the time of the inception of this work to make it an international dictionary. This has been impossible, and probably it is