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

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and it is therefore that you must be thorouglily educated in .the fundamental branches of mecUcine as the medical man himself. The college was organized with the design of teaching dentistry as a regular brancli 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; wlien 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 day. 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 faculty and clinicah corps strong and active mm, 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 twenty-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. They lead the profession in all the great centers of civiliza- tion and have won eminence in England, France, Russia, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. They have carried the honors of the institution into Asia, Australia, and the land of the pyrarnids, while in everj 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 history of our dear old College, our beloved Alma Mater, where we are now seeking a training which will not only bring distinction to, and benefit us personally, but which shall instill nobler ideas into our minds, and so broaden our characters, that we may 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 Surgery.

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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 profe,ssion, 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 Legislature having granted a liberal charter, Dr. Hayden, at the advanced age of seventy, 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. Hayden, 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 existsnce, 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 coUge 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 teachings of practical anatomy demanded privacy, and other prudential 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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