Edward Maynard was an American dental surgeon and inventor.
Background
Edward Maynard was the son of Moses and Chloe (Butler) Maynard, both of English descent. He was born on April 26, 1813 at Madison, N. Y. , where his father, a farmer, was county sheriff and in later life a member of the New York legislature.
Education
After taking a preparatory course at Hamilton Academy, Maynard entered the United States Military Academy at West Point when he was eighteen years old, but frail health caused him to resign during his first year there. He then began the study of dentistry, completing the course in 1835, and in 1836 settled in Washington, D. C. , where he practised his profession, except for short intervals, for the rest of his life.
Career
From the very beginning of his career Maynard was a profound research student and as early as 1836 announced the existence of dental fevers. This discovery was much discussed by the American Society of Dental Surgeons and was subsequently proven correct by the aid of microscope. From 1843 to 1846 he was co-editor of the American Journal of Dental Science. In 1846 he announced before the faculty of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery the great diversity of situation, form, and capacity of the large cavities of the superior maxillaries, a discovery which proved of great importance in the treatment of these cavities. From 1857 until his death he held the chair of theory and practice in the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery and from 1887 to 1891 a like position in the National University, Washington.
In 1845 he patented a system of priming consisting of a coiled, tape like paper strip containing fifty fulminate caps spaced at equal distances apart, and a mechanism which automatically fed the tape, a cap at a time, from the recess of the gun in which it was protected, into position for firing. The Maynard tape primer, as it was called, was adopted by the federal government and generally used by the governments of Europe. In 1851 he patented an improvement in breech-loading rifles which, with subsequent improvements made by him in the succeeding fourteen years, brought about the general adoption of the Maynard rifle by governments and sportsmen throughout the world. Prior to 1886 he patented also a number of minor improvements in firearms, including a method of converting muzzle-loaders into breech-loaders; a method of joining two rifle or shotgun barrels to permit longitudinal expansion or contraction; and a device to indicate the number of cartridges in a magazine of a repeating firearm.
Achievements
Membership
member of the American Academy of Dental Sciences, member of the European Society of American Dentists, a member of the International Medical Congress
Connections
Maynard was twice married: in 1839 to Ellen Sophia Doty at Sherburne, N. Y. , and in 1869 to Nellie Long of Savannah, Ga. At the time of his death in Washington he was survived by eight children, one of whom was George Willoughby Maynard.