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

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THE MIRROR profession; is that, although it is one of the most prominent professions of today, its evolution is embraced within the space 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 legitimate students w ere 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 dehvered 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 prejucUce of the community against dissections having shown itself some years before. 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 1200 practitioners of den- tistry in America, more than one-half of whom were ignorant, incap- able men, whose knowledge w as 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-eighth year of the career of the college with its prospects for usefulness brighter than ever. It has added to its faculty 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 exsitence. Over twenty-five hundred graduates have gone from this College into practice, and these are scattered all over the civiHzed world. They are located in nearly every city of Europe. They lead the profes- sion in all the great centers of civiUzation 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 pyramids, while in every State of our Repubhc, and in all parts of Canada they have demonstrated their own worth and the excellent training afforded them by their Alma Mater. The} ' have 15

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THE MIRROR 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. Greenwood ' s instruc- tions and from his books, he went in 1804 to Baltimore, Md., to prac- tice 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 University of Maryland and the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia. In 1814 he was appointed acting surgeon in the Thirty-ninth Regiment of Maryland Militia. 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 papers to medical journals on his physio- logical 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 Decem- ber, 1839, to establish a dental college, the faculty to consist partly of dental and partly of medical practitioners. The legislature having granted a liberal charter the college was founded with a faculty com- posed of the following named gentlemen: H. H. Hayden, M.D., Professor of Physiology and Pathology; R. W. Baxley, M.D., Professor of Anatomy; C. A. Harris, M.D., Professor of Theory and Practice of Dentistry; and Thomas E. Bond, M.D., Professor of Therapeutics. Although at the advanced age of 70 years Dr. Hayden entered upon the duties of the chair assigned him, and until the illness which ter- minated his life, he continued to exercise the duties of his profession and lectures to his class. In 1840 in Nev York, was held a meeting of the best dentists then in the profession, the outcome of which was the formation of the Amer- ican Society of Dental Surgeons. This outcome was chiefly due to the labors of Dr. Hayden, and he was unanimously elected President of the society and reelected each year until his death. He died on the twenty-sixth day of January, 1844, at the age of seventy-five. A remarkable feature of dentistry, a feature common to no other 14

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THE MIRROR 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 Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. 3 16