3 Dentists That Revolutionized History As We Know It

The luxuries of today’s modern dentistry were the labor of yesterday’s dentists!

March 6 is national Dentist’s Day. This year, remember that your dentists are people just like you, and just want you to have the best oral and overall health. Here at Penn Dental Medicine, we’ll be appreciating our student dentists and all the work they put into helping each one of their patients.

The truth is that we’ve come a long way over the past 200 years, and the dentists of today build on the discoveries of yesterday’s dentists. In honor of this special occasion, we’d like to journey into the stories of 3 dentists that revolutionized the history of dentistry as we know it.

1. FATHER OF ORTHODONTICS
   Born in 1855, Edward Hartley Angle dedicated his life to teaching, standardizing, and practicing orthodontics. He’s still known as the Father of Orthodontics for his Angles Classification. This system is still used widely by dentists and orthodontists. He also coined the term “malocclusion” and invented many surgical techniques and appliances.

2. THE FIRST ANESTHESIOLOGIST
   Are you glad that your dental procedure doesn’t come with the kind of pain that pre-modern medicine patients always experienced? Then it’s time to appreciate William Thomas Green Morton, born American in 1819. Known as “the discoverer of anesthesia,” Dr. Morton was the first to use ether as a general anesthetic during a dental surgery. After he conducted his first “painless tooth extraction” using ether, he was asked to do a demonstration in the theatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital. The building is now known as the “Ether Dome!”

3. SCIENTIFIC PIONEER: DIET AND DENTISTRY
   Born in 1870, Weston Price was a dentist that revolutionized our understanding of the relationship between dental and overall health. His research on 17 different indigenous groups drew from nature’s closest approximation of a randomized controlled trial (the gold standard of evidence-based medicine).25 years of laboratory and clinical research on the causes and results of tooth decay brought him fame as a leading scientist. But his work went far further than that. In his studies comparing indigenous peoples living on traditional diets and indigenous people with a modern diet, he discovered the nutritional deficiencies caused by modern eating which lie at the root of many dental and overall health problems. The culprits?

   Processed oils, sugar, flour/refined sugars.

   Dr. Price found that the indigenous peoples, living on their traditional diets, had much better overall health, dental structures, and gave birth to children having few mental or physical problems. The research branch of the American Dentist Association was founded by Dr. Price, and his foundation also still lives on as a legacy of his research on the link between diet and dental health.

Appreciate Your Dentist

What would the world be like without people such as these, who dedicated their lives to helping people and improving the field of dentistry? We don’t know, but we’re thankful, and at Penn Dental Medicine we hope to continue this legacy of research, high standards of ethics and practice, and most of all, excellent care to our patients.

Supervised by experienced professionals in the field, our student dentists work very hard to ensure that their patients receive good care–and the patients get it at a great price. If you need dental care this year and are looking for a service you can afford, send us your contact or you can call us for an appointment.

What are your best experiences at a dentist’s office? Leave some love in the comments section below!

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