University of Maryland Baltimore Dental School - Mirror Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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About the year 1825 he was invited to read a course of lectures on dentistry before the medical class of the University of Maryland. He also contributed several able papers to medical journals on his physiological researches. Having ever in mind the elevation of the dental profession, he, Dr. C. A. Harris and others sent a petition to the Legislature, in December, 1839, to estab- lish a Dental College, the faculty to consist partly of dental and partly of medical practitioners. The Le gislature having granted a liberal charter. Dr. Hayden, at the advanced age of seventj entered upon the duties of the Chair assigned him in that institution, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. In 1840, in New York, was held a meeting of the best dentists then in the profession, the outcome of which was the formation of the American Society of Dental Surgeons. This outcome was chiefly due to the labors of Dr. Ha3 ' den, and he was unanimously chosen President of the society and reelected each year until his death. Until the illness which terminated his life, Dr. Hayden continued to exercise the duties of his profession and to lecture to his class. He died on the 26th of January, 1844, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. We have already stated that the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery is the oldest institution of its kind in existence, and for this reason we might say that Baltimore is really the cradle of dentistry and of the dental profession. A remarkable feature of dentistry, a feature common to no other profession, is that, although it is one of the most prominent professions to-day, its evolution is embraced within the span of one human life. The practical inauguration of the new college presented a difficulty well known in America, when professors often outnumbered students. At length five legiti- mate students of dentistry were found to covet the honor of the new title D.D.S., and the first course of instruction was given in the winter of 1840-41. The didactic lectures were delivered in a small room, publicly situated, but the teachmgs of practical anatomy demanded privacy, and other prudental considerations also suggested the use for that purpose of a secluded stable loft, the prejudice of the community against dissection having shown itself some years before. Dr. Bond, in his valedictory to the graduates, at its first commencement exercises, March, 1841, says: You have been taught that dental surgery is not a new art separate from, and independent of, general medicine; but that it is an important branch of the science of healing. You have seen and traced out the exquisitely beautiful machinery by which the human organism is everywhere knit together; you have carefully examined the phenomena of health and disease, as they are manifested in the dental arch, its connections and relations, and you have been taught to regard the human body as a whole, united in all its parts, and pervaded everywhere by strong and ' active sympathies; and your principles of practice have been carefully formed on a sound knowledge of general medicine

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The American Journal of Dental Science. During the first year of its publi- cation it was issued with some irregularity at the price of 13 per armum. It was printed in Baltimore. His next task was the creating of faculties for educat- ing men for the duties of the dental profession; accordingly in the winter of 1839-40, he obtained signatures to a petition to be laid before the Legislature of Maryland for the incorporation of a College of Dental Surgerj , at Baltimore. After much opposition the charter was granted and Dr. Harris continued through life to exercise the duties of one of its most important professorships. In 1840 Dr. H. H. Hayden went to New York and Boston with the design of forming a Dental Society. Dr. Harris, among others, immediately responded to the call and the speedy result was the organization of the American Society of Dental Surgeons. In 1840 he published a Monograph of the Physical Characteristics of the Teeth ; in 1841 a Dissertation on the Diseases of the Maxillary Sinus. He also revised his Principles and Practice through several editions, and completed his Dictionary of Dental Science, Biography, Bibliography and Medical Terminology. He also translated from the French the works of Delabarre. Tlirough his labors for the profession and his unbounded generosity, although his practice was large, he died poor in the city of Baltimore on the 29th of Sep- tember, 1860. HORACE H. HAYDEN was born at Windsor, Conn., October 13, 1768. He was remarkable from his childhood, and it is said that he learned to read almost as soon as he did to talk, and at once contracted that love for books which was so marked all through his life. While a boy he also manifested a great fondness for natural history which clung to him in after life. At ten years of age he began the study of classics, but, probably for the want of means, soon abandoned it and at the age of four- teen, in the humble capacity of cabin boy of a fine brig, lie made two voyages to the West Indies. At the age of sixteen he became apprenticed to an architect until he became of age. He then pursued his business in the West Indies, Connecticut and New York. While in the latter State he had occasion to call on Dr. John Greenwood (dentist) for his services, when the thought struck him that he would like to follow that profession. Obtaining such information as he could from Dr. Green- wood ' s instructions and from his books, he went in 1804 to Baltimore, Md., to practise the profession and labored to elevate the calling. To this end he commenced the study of medicine, and in later life the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine was conferred upon him both by the l niversity of Maryland and the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. In 1814 he was appointed acting surgeon in tlie Thirty-ninth Regiment of Maryland Militia. 11

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and it is therefore that you must be thoroughly educated in the fundamental branches of medicine as the medical man himself. The college was organized with the design of teaching dentistry as a regular branch of medicine, and in order to denote the phenomenal progress of the old Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, start at the time of its birth; when there were about 1,200 practitioners of dentistry in America, more than one-half of whom were ignorant, incapable men, whose knowledge was composed of a few secrets which they had purchased at fabulous prices from other charlatans, and who considered three or four weeks ample time in which to attain all the knowledge necessary to the successful pursuit of the calling, and contrast the requirements of that time with those of the present daj ' . This is the sixty-third year of the career of the College with its prospects for usefulness brighter than ever. It has added to its facultj and clinical corps strong and active men, and is better equipped to carry out the purpose of its inception than at any period of its existence. The results of its work in sixty-three years are world-wide in their influence upon dentistry. Over twentj ' -two hundred graduates have gone from this College into practice, and these are scattered all over the civilized world. They are located in nearly every city of Europe. The} ' lead the profession in all the great centres of civiliza- tion and have won eminence in England, France, Russia, Switzerland, Spain and Itah They have carried the honors of the institution into Asia, Australia, and the land of the pyramids, while in every State of our Republic, and in all parts of Canada they have demonstrated their own worth and the excellent training afforded them by their Alma Mater. They have met with signal honor abroad, nearly every court dentist in Europe being a graduate of this institution. Such in brief is the historj ' of our dear old College, our beloved Alma Mater, where we are now seeking a trai ning which will not onlj ' bring distinction to, and benefit us personally, but which shall instil nobler ideas into our minds, and so broaden our characters, that we ma} ' become better citizens, and better able to fill our allotted place in life, whatever it may be. And may we ever prove an honor to the calling in which we are about to engage, and to our best friend, the Balti- more College of Dental Sure;erv.