Dental Drill, 1871

Item

Title

Dental Drill, 1871

Date

1871

Description

Dental Drill, invented by James Beall Morrison
Original Gold Leading and Paint
The first foot-pedal drill was sold at a dental meeting in Binghamton, New York, on April 17, 1872. Morrison claimed his drill could attain 2000 RPM, a significant increase over previous hand-operated drills that only generated 15 RPM!
Part of Morrison’s patent claimed the invention of transfer of power using a flexible coiled wire, but this had already been described by James Nasmyth, an engineer from Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1829. Nasmyth invented “a mode of transmitting rotary motion by means of a flexible shaft, formed of a coiled spiral wire or rod of steel.” In 1858, Charles Merry, a dentist from St. Louis, incorporated Nasmyth’s invention of rotary motion via a flexible shaft into a hand-driven dental drill called the "Merry Drill." It is unknown whether Morrison was aware of Nasmyth’s invention.

Rights

Courtesy of UNMC College of Dentistry, through the support of the Dental Museum Fund and curated by Dr. Stanton D. Harn

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