In 1833 the Crawcour brothers, two Frenchmen, brought amalgam to
the United States, and in 1844 it was reported that fifty percent
of all dental restorations placed in upstate New York consisted of
amalgam.[5] However, at that point the use of dental amalgam was
declared to be malpractice, and the American Society of Dental
Surgeons (ASDS), the only US dental association at the time, forced
all of its members to sign a pledge to abstain from using the
mercury fillings.[6] This was the beginning of what are known as
the first dental amalgam war.[7] - excerpt wikipedia.