History of Dentistry

American Dental Association

• Presidents & History of the ADA
• Founding of the American Dental Association (PDF)
• American Dental Association Annual Session Site Locations (PDF)
• ADA Chicago Headquarters Building (PDF)
  
  • Family Sculpture (PDF)

Dentistry

• Frequently Asked Questions on Dental History (PDF)
• List of Books on the History of Dentistry (PDF)

Timeline

• Ancient Origins
  5000 BC-201

  5000 BC

  A Sumerian text of this date describes “tooth worms” as the cause of dental decay.

  2600 BC

  Death of Hesy-Re, an Egyptian scribe, often called the first “dentist.” An inscription on his tomb includes the title “the greatest of those who deal with teeth, and of physicians.” This is the earliest known reference to a person identified as a dental practitioner.

  1700-1550 BC

  An Egyptian text, the Ebers Papyrus, refers to diseases of the teeth and various toothache remedies.

  500-300 BC

  Hippocrates and Aristotle write about dentistry, including the eruption pattern of teeth, treating decayed teeth and gum disease, extracting teeth with forceps, and using wires to stabilize loose teeth and fractured jaws.

  100 BC

  Celsus, a Roman medical writer, writes extensively in his important compendium of medicine on oral hygiene, stabilization of loose teeth, and treatments for toothache, teething pain, and jaw fractures.

  166-201 AD

  The Etruscans practice dental prosthetics using gold crowns and fixed bridgework.

• The Beginnings of a Profession - Middle Ages
  500-1575

  700

  A medical text in China mentions the use of “silver paste,” a type of amalgam.

  1210

  A Guild of Barbers is established in France. Barbers eventually evolve into two groups: surgeons who were educated and trained to perform complex surgical operations; and lay barbers, or barber-surgeons, who performed more routine hygienic services including shaving, bleeding and tooth extraction.

  1400

  A series of royal decrees in France prohibit lay barbers from practicing all surgical procedures except bleeding, cupping, leeching, and extracting teeth.

  1530

  The Little Medicinal Book for All Kinds of Diseases and Infirmities of the Teeth (Artzney Buchlein), the first book devoted entirely to dentistry, is published in Germany. Written for barbers and surgeons who treat the mouth, it covers practical topics such as oral hygiene, tooth extraction, drilling teeth, and placement of gold fillings.

  1575

  In France Ambrose Pare, known as the Father of Surgery, publishes his Complete Works. This includes practical  information about dentistry such as tooth extraction and the treatment of tooth decay and jaw fractures.

• The Development of a Profession - 18th Century
  1723-1790

  1723

  Pierre Fauchard, a French surgeon publishes The Surgeon Dentist, A Treatise on Teeth (Le Chirurgien Dentiste). Fauchard is credited as being the Father of Modern Dentistry because his book was the first to describe a comprehensive system for the practice of dentistry including basic oral anatomy and function, operative and restorative techniques, and denture construction.

  1746

  Claude Mouton describes a gold crown and post to be retained in the root canal. He also recommends white enameling for gold crowns for a more esthetic appearance.

  1760

  John Baker, the earliest medically-trained dentist to practice in America, immigrates from England and sets up practice.

  1760-1780

  Isaac Greenwood practices as the first native-born American dentist.

  1768-1770

  Paul Revere places advertisements in a Boston newspaper offering his services as a dentist. In 1776, in the first known case of post-mortem dental forensics, Revere verifies the death of his friend, Dr. Joseph Warren in the Battle of Breed’s Hill, when he identifies the bridge that he constructed for Warren.

  1789

  Frenchman Nicolas Dubois de Chemant receives the first patent for porcelain teeth.

  1790

  • John Greenwood, son of Isaac Greenwood and one of George Washington’s dentists, constructs the first known dental foot engine. He adapts his mother’s foot treadle spinning wheel to rotate a drill.
  • Josiah Flagg, a prominent American dentist, constructs the first chair made specifically for dental patients. To a wooden Windsor chair, Flagg attaches an adjustable headrest, plus an arm extension to hold instruments.

• Advances in Science and Education - 19th Century
  1801-1899

  1801

  Richard C. Skinner writes the Treatise on the Human Teeth, the first dental book published in America.

  1825

  Samuel Stockton begins commercial manufacture of porcelain teeth. His S.S. White Dental Manufacturing Company establishes and dominates the dental supply market throughout the 19th century.

  1832

  James Snell invents the first reclining dental chair.

  1833-1850

  The Crawcours (two brothers from France) introduce amalgam filling material in the United States under the name Royal Mineral Succedaneum. The brothers are charlatans whose unscrupulous methods spark the “amalgam wars,” a bitter controversy within the dental profession over the use of amalgam fillings.

  1839

  • The American Journal of Dental Science, the world’s first dental journal, begins publication.
  • Charles Goodyear invents the vulcanization process for hardening rubber. The resulting Vulcanite, an inexpensive material easily molded to the mouth, makes a excellent base for false teeth, and is soon adopted for use by dentists. In 1864 the molding process for vulcanite dentures is patented, but the dental profession fights the onerous licensing fees for the next twenty-five years.

  1840

  • Horace Hayden and Chapin Harris found the world’s first dental school, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, and establish the Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) degree. (The school merges with the University of Maryland in 1923).
  • The American Society of Dental Surgeons, the world’s first national dental organization, is founded. (The organization dissolves in 1856.)

  1841

  Alabama enacts the first dental practice act, regulating dentistry in the United States. The act called for the assignment of a dentist to the state’s medical board in order to grant licenses for practicing dentistry in the state, however, the act was never enforced, few dentists are ever assigned a seat on the medical board and only a couple of dental licenses are ever granted during the forty years it was on the books.

  1846

  Dentist William Morton conducts the first successful public demonstration of the use of ether anesthesia for surgery. The previous year Horace Wells, also a dentist, had conducted a similar demonstration that was regarded a failure when the patient cried out. Crawford Long, a physician, later claims he used ether as an anesthetic in an operation as early as 1842, but he did not publish his work.

  1855

  Robert Arthur originates the cohesive gold foil method allowing dentists to insert gold into a cavity with minimal pressure. The foil is fabricated by annealing, a process of passing gold through a flame making it soft and malleable.

  1859

  Twenty-six dentists meet in Niagara Falls, New York, and form the American Dental Association.

  1864

  Sanford C. Barnum develops the rubber dam, a piece of elastic rubber fitted over a tooth by means of weights. This simple device isolates the tooth from the oral cavity, a troublesome problem for dentists.

  1866

  Lucy Beaman Hobbs graduates from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, becoming the first woman to earn a dental degree.

  1867

  The Harvard University Dental School, the first university-affiliated dental institution, is founded. The school calls its degree the Dentariae Medicinae Doctorae (DMD), creating a continuing semantic controversy (DDS vs. DMD).

  1869

  Dr. Robert Tanner Freeman, graduating from Harvard University Dental School, becomes the first African-American to earn a dental degree.

  1871

  • James B. Morrison patents the first commercially manufactured foot-treadle dental engine. Morrison’s inexpensive, mechanized tool supplies dental burs with enough speed to cut enamel and dentin smoothly and quickly, revolutionizing the practice of dentistry.
  • The American George F. Green receives a patent for the first electric dental engine, a self-contained motor and handpiece.

  1877

  The Wilkerson chair, the first pump-type hydraulic dental chair, is introduced.

  1880s

  The collapsible metal tube revolutionizes toothpaste manufacturing and marketing. Dentifrice had been available only in liquid or powder form, usually made by individual dentists, and sold in bottles, porcelain pots, or paper boxes. Tube toothpaste, in contrast, is mass-produced in factories, mass-marketed, and sold nation-wide. In twenty years, it becomes the norm.

  1883

  The National Association of Dental Examiners is founded by the members of the dental boards of several states in order to establish uniform standards in the qualifications for dental practitioners, the administration of dental boards overseeing licensing and the legislation of dental practice acts.

  1885

  The first female dental assistant is employed by C. Edmond Kells, a prominent New Orleans dentist. Her duties include chair-side assistance, instrument cleaning, inventory, appointments, bookkeeping, and reception. Soon “Lady in Attendance” signs are routinely seen in the windows of 19th century dental offices. The American Dental Assistants Association is founded in 1924 by Juliette Southard and her female colleagues.

  1887

  Stowe & Eddy Dental Laboratory, the first successful industrial-type laboratory in the U.S., opens in Boston, marking the ascendancy of the modern commercial dental laboratory. The earliest known dental laboratory in the U.S. was Sutton & Raynor which opened in New York City around 1854.

  1890

  • Ida Gray, the first African-American woman to earn a dental degree, graduates from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry.
  • Willoughby Miller an American dentist in Germany, notes the microbial basis of dental decay in his book Micro-Organisms of the Human Mouth. This generates an unprecedented interest in oral hygiene and starts a world-wide movement to promote regular toothbrushing and flossing.

  1895

  Wilhelm Roentgen, a German physicist, discovers the x-ray. In 1896 prominent New Orleans dentist C. Edmond Kells takes the first dental x-ray of a living person in the U.S.

  1899

  Edward Hartley Angle classifies the various forms of malocclusion. Credited with making orthodontics into a dental specialty, Angle also establishes the first school of orthodontics (Angle School of Orthodontia in St. Louis, 1900), the first orthodontic society (American Society of Orthodontia, 1901), and the first dental specialty journal (American Orthodontist, 1907)

• Innovations in Techniques and Technology - The 20th Century
  1903-1998

  1903

  Charles Land devises the porcelain jacket crown.

  1905

  Alfred Einhorn, a German chemist, formulates the local anesthetic procain, later marketed under the trade name Novocain.

  1907

  William Taggart invents a “lost wax” casting machine, allowing dentists to make precision cast fillings.

  1908

  Greene Vardiman Black, the leading reformer and educator of American dentistry, publishes his monumental two-volume treatise Operative Dentistry, which remains the essential clinical dental text for fifty years. Black later develops techniques for filling teeth, standardizes operative procedures and instrumentation, develops an improved amalgam, and pioneers the use of visual aids for teaching dentistry.

  1910

  The first formal training program for dental nurses is established at the Ohio College of Dental Surgery by Cyrus M. Wright. The program is discontinued in 1914 mainly due to opposition by Ohio dentists.

  1911

  The U.S. Army Dental Corps is established as the first armed services dental corps in the U.S. The Navy institutes its Dental Corps in 1912.

  1913

  Alfred C. Fones opens the Fones Clinic For Dental Hygienists in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the world’s first oral hygiene school. Most of the twenty-seven women graduates of the first class are employed by the Bridgeport Board of Education to clean the teeth of school children. The greatly reduced incidence of caries among these children gives impetus to the dental hygienist movement. Dr. Fones, first to use the term “dental hygienist,” becomes known as the Father of Dental Hygiene.

  1917

  Irene Newman receives the world’s first dental hygiene license in Connecticut.

  1930

  The American Board of Orthodontics, the world’s first dental specialty board, is founded.

  1937

  Alvin Strock inserts the first Vitallium dental screw implant. Vitallium, the first successful biocompatible implant metal, had been developed a year earlier by Charles Venable, an orthopedic surgeon.

  1938

  The nylon toothbrush, the first made with synthetic bristles, appears on the market.

  1945

  The water fluoridation era begins when the cities of Newburgh, New York, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, add sodium fluoride to their public water systems.

  1948

  President Harry S. Truman signs the Congressional bill formally establishing the National Institute of Dental Research and initiating federal funding for dental research. Dr. H. Trendley Dean is appointed its first director. The Institute is renamed the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in 1998.

  1949

  Oskar Hagger, a Swiss chemist, develops the first system of bonding acrylic resin to dentin.

  1950

  The first fluoride toothpastes are marketed.

  1955

  Michael Buonocore describes the acid etch technique, a simple method of increasing the adhesion of acrylic fillings to enamel.

  1957

  John Borden introduces a high-speed air-driven contra-angle handpiece. The Airotor obtains speeds up to 300,000 rotations per minute and is an immediate commercial success, launching a new era of high-speed dentistry.

  1958

  A fully reclining dental chair is introduced.

  1960

  • Sit down, four-handed dentistry becomes popular in the U.S. This technique improves productivity and shortens treatment time.
  • Lasers are developed and approved for soft tissue work, such as treatment of periodontal disease.
  • The first commercial electric toothbrush, developed in Switzerland after World War II, is introduced in the United States. A cordless, rechargeable model follows in 1961.

  1962

  Rafael Bowen develops Bis-GMA, the thermoset resin complex used in most modern composite resin restorative materials.

  1980

  Per-Ingvar Branemark describes techniques for the osseointegration of dental implants.

  1989

  The first commercial home tooth bleaching product is marketed.

  1990

  New tooth-colored restorative materials plus increased usage of bleaching, veneers, and implants inaugurate an era of esthetic dentistry.

  1997

  FDA approves the erbium YAG laser, the first for use on dentin, to treat tooth decay.

  1998

  The National Institute of Dental Research is renamed National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research to more accurately reflect the broad research base that it has come to support.