Chicago College of Dental Surgery - Dentos Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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the practice of medicine and often operated in open 1 hostility to it. Its literature did not exist and its recruits came from those restless souls who were willing to try their hand at anything. Commer- cialism and exploitation were part and parcel of T dental practice and the social standing W' the practitioner was not even that of the accomplished artisan. Dentistry in short, had little cj the noble blood U the arts and less of the heritage of science. Then came Haydenland Harris in I8-10. The education of dentists was put on a rational and scientyic basis. Rudimentary medical science was taught to future practitioners and the foundations ry' a rationale for dental practice were laid. Through the dec- ades commercialism was driven from dental educationg the basic sciences becanze fundamentals of the dental courseg the dental technics in clinic and laboratoiy were rcyined. Increased too were the preliminary educational requirements necessary to the practice cy' dentistry until, today, the minimum requirements for dental practice are two years of liberal arts college education and four years of dental education. As dentistry began to expand its services to the public, there was increasing need of measures to control the charlatan. State by state, legislation was adopted to regulate the requirements and admission ey' dental practice until the system was evolved which today protects the public from the untrained and the unqualyied. For many years after the foundation of the jirst dental college, the emphasis Q' dental practice was laid upon materials and physical procedures. The mechanical obstacles to be overcome in the dnficult technical procedure of filling and restoring the teeth were many. But the pioneers applied a re- markable ingenuity to solve them and their success is attested by the many methods cy' theirs which are still in use to this day. This technical advance, perhaps more than any other, has characterized American dentistry until today jinds it leading all of the other countries of the world. The interchange Q' ideas that comes with organization was soon to give its benefits to dentistry. Dental societies were organized and grew in in- fluence until they became the nucleus cy the American Dental Association which represents the profession in this country at the present time with a ales ., 5 v 'ncaa 'N ja k 95 X-4- ,?N'G,e5, Q 0 o 0 6

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to deliver a course qt lectures in dental surgery to the medical class of the University of Maryland. In 1817 he was instrumental in organizing the first union Q' dental practitioners into an association for mutual benefit. In 1841, through the agency cy' the newly organized society, he aided in the publication M The American Journal of Dental Science, the first dental journal ever to be published. bVith Chapin A. Harris and other collaborators, Dr. Hayden founded the first institution dedicated to special dental education and became, at the age cy' seventy, its first president and professor of Principles of Dental Science. Four years later Dr. Hayden died and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Baltimore, where his remains still lie in the famibf vault. Chapin Aaron Harris, whose name is always intimately associated with that of Horace H. Hayden, was born at Pompey, New York, on May 6, 1806, and thus was many years Haydcn's junior. He began the study mf medicine in 1824 in Madison, Ohio, and was later duly licensed to practice. In 18.28 he began the practice of dentistry and soon became an itinerant dentist, eventually to settle, in 1835, in Baltimore where he came into as- sociation with Hayden. In 1839 he published his jirst dental text, The Dental .firt-a Practical Treatise on Dental Surgery. This was to be merely the first fy' his many published writings for hc contributed prolyic- ally to the literature on a wide variety of subjects in later years. He joined with Hayden in founding the first dental journal and the jirst dental society. In the winter cy' 1839-1840, under great digfculties, he managed to secure a charter for the incorpor- ation of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery and became its ffff dean. He continued to be a vital force in all of these projects until his death I on September 29, 1860. A century ago dentistry was a craft concerned with materials and the prices to be made from adapting these to the occasional needs of the people. It was a craft that had many things in common with the silversmith and the vendorwf potions. It relieved gross sujering and infrequentb attempted to restore those organs lost through such ministra- tions. It required nothing more than a mild ambition to undertake these primitive dental operations because there was no system of education or licensure. Dentistry in those days was not associated in friendbf relationship with . 4. ig gage?-Xcsym Ou olafgixv 0 K 4Ki oCJ30g.JoL Q

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membership cy' 45,000. In the years Q' its existence it has ably advanced the two ideals to which it is dedicated: the advancement of the public health and the progress of the przjession. Dental literature, too, grew in quality and quantity. Its advancing standards did much to foster the exchange of ideas and to abolish the prim- itive practices that had no foundation in science. It was of great influence in disseminating information on technical advances and in grounding more solidbz the dental practice of the day in the elementary sciences. One of the great contributions Q' dentistry to mankind and one that did much to enhance the prestige of the developing profession was the role dentists played in the discovery and promotion of general anesthesia. No matter how much acrimony surrounds the actual facts and circumstances of dis- covery, it remains that the names of Horace Wells and William T. G. Moi-toiz, both dentists, will live in connection with this inestimable contribution to the relief cj human sufering. Now that dentistry was beginning to attain its stature as a prdession, even more signyicant changes were not far in the future. In 1891 lfilloughby D. Millet' had written a paper on The Human Mouth as a Focus of In- fection and later came his Microorganisms of the Human Mouth. Hunter, working in England at about the same time, introduced the term oral sepsis and, in 1910, called attention to the hazards of health that might arise in the human mouth. Onbf a few years previous Billings and Rosenow, of Chicago, had enunci- ated their historic theory of the relationship between dental and systemic disease. dll of this work had a tremendous impact upon t the practice and development of dentistry in this , country. The emphasis, which previousb had been placed on the mechanical aspects Q' dentistry, was now shgfted to the biologic phases cj dental practice. A knowledge Q' the basic sciences became essential and the associated sciences were enlisted to aid the practice of dentistry. This development is, perhaps, the most significant in the modern history J dentistry. It established dentistry as a profession that has a distinct province in ministering to the health of the public. It demonstrated undeniabbf the important relationship between dental and general health W ee' 0 . O2 my K?-JV 0 . I