The evolution of 20-year-old dental museum-like showcases located in the lobby and the main hallway of the School of Dental Medicine, Puerto Rico (PR) are described along with important professionals who impacted on this development.
The evolution of 20-year-old dental museum-like showcases located in the lobby and the main hallway of the School of Dental Medicine, Puerto Rico (PR) are described along with important professionals who impacted on this development.
University of Toronto Dentistry alumni have made valuable contributions to the evolution of dentistry and the dental profession not only in Canada but also internationally. The founder and some of the early faculty members of West China College of Stomatology at Sichuan University (formerly the Dental School of West China Union University), known as the birthplace of China's modern dental science education, were alumni from the University of Toronto. With their excellent dental background, skills, and dedication, those pioneers laid a firm foundation for modern dental education in China and their contributions to this effort will be addressed in this paper.
Historically the physiological or pathological loss of tooth structure in situ was deemed to be due to the 'absorption' of tooth structure due to the removal of the inorganic components of dentin and cementum by osteoclastic (dentinoclastic) cellular activity. This nomenclature and the activity that it represented was considered by almost all dental researchers and clinicians in the 1800s and early 1900s. The shift to the concept of 'resorption' occurred in the first half of the 20th century, with clarity emanating from significant research activity on the pathology of osseous structures, origin of osteoclastic cell types, and the function of periodontal ligament cells.
Two prominent personalities in Medicine, Lorenz Heister (1683-1758) and Xavier Bichat (1771-1802), compete for the attribution of the discovery of the buccal fat pad (BFP). A careful reading of the original texts reported here, seems to identify Bichat as the first to describe the BFP. However, Heister most probably was the first to describe an accessory parotid gland.
For more than a century, at least, tooth extraction by ingenious mechanical contraptions has piqued the interest and imagination of illustrators, especially cartoonists. George Derby, an unknown British talent, and Ruben Garrett Lucius "Rube" Goldberg all dabbled in oral surgical mechanical humor.
If one could be a patient repeatedly, every twenty-five years, starting in 1825, the evolution and comparison of dental care and dental practice would be historically meaningful. Such a time travel, as a perpetual patient through 200 years, is the purpose of this paper. The changes that occurred over 200 years provide a sense of the progress in treating patients and the transformation of a painful and dreaded experience to a highly sophisticated painless profession.
In 1844, Queen Victoria was 7 years into her 63-year reign of the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. John Tyler was 10th president of the United States, to be followed by the 11th president, by James K. Polk in March of 1845. Four years before, Dr. Horace H. Hayden and Chapin A. Harris co-founded The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. The school was chartered by an act of the Maryland State Legislature in 1840. Dr. Hayden died on 25 January 1844.
Olva Odlum qualified as a dentist in England but went on to make a professional life in Canada. She became the first female member of the Manitoba dental faculty and provided care for many dentally-deprived groups, including disabled patients, those with cancer and members of the First Nation tribes.
An unusual card advertising the dental services of T.S. Henderson revives the story of an Irish dentist who left his homeland and came to Brooklyn, New York to practice. He was a fervent Irish Nationalist and was active in Irish causes. Henderson was an abuser of alcohol and eventually found dead in Albany, New York. The death was considered a suicide, but was it?
From the second half of the 18th century to the last third of the 19th century, a period of about 100 years, perpendicular (vertical) extraction, became an ideal for many authors, since molars were the most difficult teeth to remove. However, extraction instruments available at that time, caused pronounced damage to the alveolar bone and gingiva. For many authors and clinicians, vertical extraction was the only way to meet this challenge. This approach to tooth removal, while viable, came to an end when anatomically shaped forceps, adapted to the different morphologies of the various teeth were introduced, thereby changing 19th century dentistry with a new standard for tooth removal.