Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson, and we
Speaker 1: are continuing our history of dentistry and oral health today
Speaker 1: and we are basically picking up where we left off
Speaker 1: last time, so that puts us in the early eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: As promised, we're going to talk about dental chairs and
Speaker 1: amalgams to kick this one off, and we'll also talk
Speaker 1: a bit about some of the support careers in dental
Speaker 1: medicine and a little bit about orthodontics, although we're not
Speaker 1: going to get into a ton of specifics there because
Speaker 1: that's a huge field. Not going to talk about how
Speaker 1: braces work, So rest easy. As with the first part,
Speaker 1: there is only a little bit of squirmy stuff here
Speaker 1: and nothing is terribly graphic. Prior to eighteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: there were no reclining dental chairs, and Pierre Fauchard's time,
Speaker 1: he had transitioned patients from the customary sitting on the
Speaker 1: floor for dental work into sitting in chairs, and he
Speaker 1: recommended comfortable chairs with a back that was the right
Speaker 1: height to support a patient's tilted back head, as well
Speaker 1: as armrests so they had something to grip. A surgeon
Speaker 1: dentist practicing in Boston in the seventeen nineties named Josiah Flagg,
Speaker 1: had added an adjustable headrest to a windsor chair and
Speaker 1: that had made what a lot of people called the
Speaker 1: first dental chair. His chair had a handy arm that
Speaker 1: held the instruments, but it still required the patient to
Speaker 1: sit upright with their head tipped back. It wasn't exactly comfortable,
Speaker 1: even when nobody was doing anything in their mouth. But
Speaker 1: then in eighteen thirty two, London dentist James Snell, who
Speaker 1: was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, came
Speaker 1: up with a design that had an adjustable seat and backrest.
Speaker 1: A pump type hydro alec chair was introduced forty years
Speaker 1: later in eighteen seventy seven by Basil Manly Wilkerson, and
Speaker 1: that let the patient be positioned horizontally. Yeah, sitting up
Speaker 1: with your head tilted back doesn't sound uncomfortable. Do it
Speaker 1: for like five minutes and then and then imagine someone
Speaker 1: trying to pull a tooth or do something else in there. Um.
Speaker 1: Samuel Stockton White helped expand the availability of dental chairs
Speaker 1: with his company S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Company, starting
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty. Even before he began offering chairs, White
Speaker 1: had become the primary US supplier of porcelain teeth. The
Speaker 1: first patent for porcelain teeth had been issued in France
Speaker 1: to Nicolas du Bois de Chamont in seventeen ninety, so
Speaker 1: this idea of porcelain teeth was not new in the
Speaker 1: eighteen forties when White started manufacturing them, but he was
Speaker 1: the first to launch a successful commercial enterprise dedicated to
Speaker 1: their production. White continued to expand his business with chairs
Speaker 1: and dental tools, and then began publishing a periodical simply
Speaker 1: titled Dental Newsletter, which was later renamed Dental Cosmos. S. S.
Speaker 1: White still exists today as a dental supplier. In eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty three, product called Royal Mineral Secondinium appeared in the
Speaker 1: US as a filling amalgam for cavities. The story behind
Speaker 1: it has some inconsistencies and fuzzy spots because it was
Speaker 1: being peddled by two Charlatans called the Krocur. You may
Speaker 1: see the Krokour referred to as two French brothers, or
Speaker 1: as an uncle and a nephew, or sometimes as English
Speaker 1: instead of French. There are even theories there may have
Speaker 1: been more than two people using this name as a duo.
Speaker 1: It seems like the Krokur, whoever they were, and however
Speaker 1: many of them there were, possessed a rudimentary grasp of dentistry.
Speaker 1: They probably got that in France, and then they appear
Speaker 1: in England at the end of the eighteenth country, working
Speaker 1: as itinerant surgeon dentists. They slowly expanded their personal story
Speaker 1: to claim that they had been the surgeon dentist to
Speaker 1: several royal families, and they said their specialty was filling
Speaker 1: teeth with their own special amalgam, but that amalgam was toxic.
Speaker 1: It was made with a large proportion of mercury and
Speaker 1: filings from silver coins. Aside from being one completely gross
Speaker 1: and two poisonous, this filling amalgam also expanded over time,
Speaker 1: so patients who had it often found that their teeth
Speaker 1: would later break or crack because of that expansion. And then,
Speaker 1: to make matters worse, the Kracour didn't usually bother to
Speaker 1: clean out teeth before applying this amalgam. So even if
Speaker 1: their patients did not get cracked teeth, they would often
Speaker 1: end up with just horrible infections. Before the consequences of
Speaker 1: this awful dentistry could catch up with them. In England,
Speaker 1: they moved to the US to administer royal mineral suchdmium
Speaker 1: to the masses. Here in New York. They advertised their
Speaker 1: services as being performed in comfort and ease for the patient.
Speaker 1: They assured their gentleness as surgeon dentists, and this attracted
Speaker 1: a lot of business. Legitimate dentists were horrified and outraged,
Speaker 1: but the Krakur were making a lot of money until
Speaker 1: patients started getting sick anyway. In an effort to raise
Speaker 1: public awareness, some dentists started placing notices in papers telling
Speaker 1: patients what symptoms to watch for that might indicate that
Speaker 1: they had mercury poisoning. The Society of Surgeon Dentists of
Speaker 1: the City and State of New York required members to
Speaker 1: sign a promise that they would not use amalgam. The
Speaker 1: krak Cours vanished from the US by the end of
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four. Amalgam had been demonized to a degree
Speaker 1: that most dentists just simply did not trust it. It's
Speaker 1: believed that amalgam's used for dental fillings may date back
Speaker 1: as far as the seventh century in China, due to
Speaker 1: a reference in a writing of a silver paste that
Speaker 1: was referring to a tooth filling, But we don't know
Speaker 1: for certain what that may have consisted of, and most
Speaker 1: fillings that we do know of prior to the eighteen
Speaker 1: thirties would have been made with silver or gold or tin.
Speaker 1: But the work of the Croud course made people deeply
Speaker 1: suspicious of amalgams. In eighteen thirty nine, the American Society
Speaker 1: of Dental Surgeons was formed, and that was the same
Speaker 1: year the first dental journal began publication. That was the
Speaker 1: American Journal of Dental Science. An amalgam was a big topic.
Speaker 1: Within seven years, the American Society of Dental Surgeons had
Speaker 1: decided that the use of amalgams was considered malpractice. They
Speaker 1: passed a resolution to require members to sign a pledge
Speaker 1: never to use it, but this actually led to several
Speaker 1: members resigning and then a lot of conflict within the
Speaker 1: organization in the requirement was no longer in place just
Speaker 1: four years later, though some dentists continued to issue amalgam
Speaker 1: use others experimented with better quality materials, although it wasn't
Speaker 1: until eight than an amalgam recognized as workable and safe
Speaker 1: for patients emerged. That was thanks to the work of
Speaker 1: Green Vartamin Black. He's going to pop up again here
Speaker 1: in a bit, so keep his name in mind. Today
Speaker 1: amalgam is still used. It does actually still contain mercury,
Speaker 1: although that mercury is chemically bonded with the other materials
Speaker 1: in the mix to significantly decreased risk to patients. It's
Speaker 1: also certainly a higher grade than what the kracours were using.
Speaker 1: Other filling options, though, are offered by dentists or patients
Speaker 1: who might be uncomfortable with the idea of amalgam or
Speaker 1: particularly mercury, including gold fillings, porcelain filling, and even a
Speaker 1: composite filling made with resin and powdered glass that can
Speaker 1: be color meant to the existing tooth. As dentistry grew
Speaker 1: as a profession in the early eighteen hundreds and things
Speaker 1: like the amalgam debate popped up, it was becoming a
Speaker 1: parent that there needed to be some structure around both
Speaker 1: education and regulation of the field. The first dental school
Speaker 1: was founded in eighteen forty by Dr Horace H. Hayden
Speaker 1: and doctor Shapen A. Harris, with a charter from the
Speaker 1: General Assembly of Maryland, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery
Speaker 1: offered a Doctor of Dental Surgery or DDS degree, and
Speaker 1: soon dental schools opened in other cities. They built on
Speaker 1: the model of education that had been established in Baltimore.
Speaker 1: That institution was consolidated with the University of Maryland in
Speaker 1: nineteen three, and it continues as the University of Maryland
Speaker 1: School of Dentistry. On the regulation side of things, the
Speaker 1: first U S state to address the issue was Alabama.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty one, the state enacted the Law Regulating
Speaker 1: the Practice of Dental Surgery in Alabama, which stated that
Speaker 1: one the medical boards of the state had to quote
Speaker 1: examine and license applicants to practice dental surgery. Two people
Speaker 1: practicing dentistry without a license would have to pay a
Speaker 1: fine of up to fifty dollars for each instance that
Speaker 1: they did so. Three that any bonds or obligations made
Speaker 1: to practitioners who were not licensed were void. Four that
Speaker 1: practicing dentists needed to have their license recorded in the
Speaker 1: county where they practiced, and five, All existing laws that
Speaker 1: contradicted this Act were repealed by it. This all sounded
Speaker 1: pretty great, but it was not enforced, and only a
Speaker 1: few dental licenses were ever granted under this initial act
Speaker 1: in Alabama. Another topic that's come up a number of
Speaker 1: times on the show is anesthesia. William T. G. Morton
Speaker 1: is generally credited with the first successful use of anesthesia
Speaker 1: on a patient named Glenn Abbott for a surgery to
Speaker 1: remove a tumor from his neck in eighty six. Previous
Speaker 1: as attempts had not been successful, Although a doctor named
Speaker 1: Crawford Long claimed that he had been successful before Morton,
Speaker 1: he had not published about his efforts in the field. Though. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you might recognize the name Crawford Long if you live
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. Yeah, I was like that, the Crawford Long
Speaker 1: from Emory Crawford. It is the very same. Uh. There
Speaker 1: used to be a hospital named after him. Now it
Speaker 1: has a different name, but they're still signage that includes
Speaker 1: his name. As part of a memorial. Coming up, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about some of North America's early professional
Speaker 1: organizations for dentists, But first we will pause for a
Speaker 1: sponsor break. The American Dental Association formed in eighteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: The gathering where it was founded, which took place in
Speaker 1: Niagara Falls, New York, was catalyzed by ongoing concern about
Speaker 1: the need for regulation shin. Even though there were several
Speaker 1: dental schools producing new, well trained dentists at that point,
Speaker 1: there was a greater demand than could be meant by
Speaker 1: their graduates, so there was still this huge street dentist
Speaker 1: industry operating without training, oversight, or standards. Additionally, that whole
Speaker 1: drama and debate regarding amalgam had to some degree arrested
Speaker 1: the development of beneficial materials, and a regulated system could
Speaker 1: prevent another such event. There was also a concern about
Speaker 1: the use of advertising tillur patients and whether it was
Speaker 1: ethical to do so. Twenty six dentists gathered in Niagara
Speaker 1: Falls to form this initial group and address these issues.
Speaker 1: Just ten years later, in eighteen sixty nine, a splinter
Speaker 1: group formed called the Southern Dental Association, comprising dentists who
Speaker 1: had resigned from the A d A after the Civil War.
Speaker 1: The two groups remained separate for almost thirty years, and
Speaker 1: they finally combined again in eighteen nine d seven. They
Speaker 1: had a brief name change to the National Dental Association,
Speaker 1: before reverting back to that original name In another move
Speaker 1: to regulate, The National Association of Dental Examiners was founded
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty three by sitting members of the dental
Speaker 1: boards from several states as a move to develop uniform
Speaker 1: standards of qualifications throughout the country. This group was formed
Speaker 1: not just to oversee dentists as a profession, but also
Speaker 1: to oversee state dental boards and legislation related to dentistry.
Speaker 1: The first woman to graduate from dental school in the
Speaker 1: US was Lucy Beamon Hobbs later Lucy Beamon Hobbs Taylor.
Speaker 1: She was part of the eighteen sixty six graduating class
Speaker 1: at the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. She's on the
Speaker 1: list for a future episode, so we won't go into
Speaker 1: our whole story here, but she had unsurprisingly a hard
Speaker 1: time getting accepted into dental school. That was after she
Speaker 1: had already been denied entrance to medical school. She had
Speaker 1: to really circle invent the system and learned on her own,
Speaker 1: practicing dental medicine out of her own established office for
Speaker 1: long enough that by the time she was admitted to
Speaker 1: Ohio College of Dental surgery. It was pretty much a formality.
Speaker 1: She went to one session and then was given her degree.
Speaker 1: The Harvard University Dental School was the first dental school
Speaker 1: affiliated with a university. It opened in eighteen sixty seven
Speaker 1: and had another milestone just two years later, when the
Speaker 1: first black man in the United States was given a
Speaker 1: dental degree. That man was Dr Robert Tanner Freeman. He
Speaker 1: was the son of formerly enslaved parents. Freeman had applied
Speaker 1: to two other dental schools and he had been denied
Speaker 1: based entirely on his race. He had been working as
Speaker 1: an assistant to a dentist for a while before that,
Speaker 1: so he was well qualified. After graduating though from Harvard,
Speaker 1: he practiced in Washington, d c. For the next four years,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately he died suddenly from an illness that was waterborne,
Speaker 1: at the age of just twenty six. We mentioned dentificus
Speaker 1: earlier when talking about John Baker, and this was a product.
Speaker 1: It was a powder that could scrub your teeth clean.
Speaker 1: And just as the practice of dentistry wasn't initially regulated,
Speaker 1: it took a long time for tooth cleaners to be regulated,
Speaker 1: and often they were really dangerous. Some powdered dentificases were
Speaker 1: made with things like ground coral, which would clean your teeth.
Speaker 1: They would also strip them of their enamel. Those early
Speaker 1: offerings weren't mass produced, though large scale toothpaste production didn't
Speaker 1: start until the eighteen eighties. This is when the move
Speaker 1: was made to package it in tubes. Although initially the
Speaker 1: quality remained pretty hit or miss. By the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: toothpaste had become a standard part of oral hygiene, although
Speaker 1: there were still some powders being made. Tooth brushes similarly
Speaker 1: had sort of a late bloom, even though they had
Speaker 1: been around for hundreds and in some cases thousands of
Speaker 1: years in some form or another. It is believed that
Speaker 1: the first toothbrush to really resemble those that you would
Speaker 1: commonly see today was made in China in the late
Speaker 1: fifteenth century. That being like the bristles that are perpendicular
Speaker 1: to the handle. There were others that were developing in
Speaker 1: various places that looked almost more like a paintbrush, where
Speaker 1: the bristles were an extension of the handle, and in
Speaker 1: the seventeenth and eighteenth century, similar toothbrushes to that one
Speaker 1: in China existed in Europe. But these were tended to
Speaker 1: be kind of fancy. They would often have ivory handles,
Speaker 1: and they were used primarily just by the upper class.
Speaker 1: For a long time, cloths or even sponges were used
Speaker 1: as the primary teeth cleaning instruments for the average person,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until the eighteen fifties that toothbrushes were
Speaker 1: manufactured in significant quantity. The first patent for a toothbrush
Speaker 1: in the United States was issued in eighteen fifty seven
Speaker 1: that went to none other than S. S. White manufacturing.
Speaker 1: Nylon bristles were introduced in nineteen thirty eight by DuPont.
Speaker 1: Up to that point, natural bristles like boar's hair were used,
Speaker 1: and the first electric toothbrush came out in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: Because I was looking for pictures to put on our
Speaker 1: social media, I saw all of these old toothbrush pictures,
Speaker 1: and so many of them had bristles that looked more
Speaker 1: like the texture I would expect from like a hair
Speaker 1: brush or a shaving brush, and not a toothbrush. Seems
Speaker 1: like it would be very pokey on your gum or
Speaker 1: too soft like the other direction too, and some of
Speaker 1: them it really yeah. Dentist Charles Edmund Kell's of New
Speaker 1: Orleans was the first doctor known to hire women assistants
Speaker 1: to help in his practice, and that started in eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty five. His first assistant was his wife and his
Speaker 1: next hire for the job was a young woman named
Speaker 1: Melvina Aquaria. This was kind of a catch all job,
Speaker 1: part receptionist, part dental assistant. It became trendy for dental
Speaker 1: offices to have women on staff, and these kind times
Speaker 1: of roles leading to signs that read lady in attendance
Speaker 1: being commonplace at dentist offices. Having a woman on staff
Speaker 1: made it acceptable for women patients to come in for
Speaker 1: appointments without their husbands or another male relative to accompany them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: initially it seems sort of quaint and you're like, what
Speaker 1: are you doing, But it really made dentistry more um
Speaker 1: available to a lot of people. For example, a single
Speaker 1: woman would have had a hard time if she didn't
Speaker 1: have uh male relative, Like if she was truly on
Speaker 1: her own, going to a dentist's office would have seemed
Speaker 1: kind of scandalous if there was not another lady present there.
Speaker 1: So it really did kind of shift accessibility in an
Speaker 1: important way. And this was we should note this uh
Speaker 1: dental assistant role very different than a hygenist. Although the
Speaker 1: two positions were in some ways coalescing it roughly the
Speaker 1: same time, they have some overlap, even though that started
Speaker 1: in the eighteen eighties. In nineteen the first school for
Speaker 1: hygienis the Phonus Clinic for Dental Hygienists, open in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: That school was run by Alfred C. Phonus, who had
Speaker 1: trained his cousin, Irene Newman as a dental assistant, and
Speaker 1: then he started adding duties like cleaning and preventative care
Speaker 1: to her work. This began because Irene did really really
Speaker 1: well with children at the practice initially, and so he
Speaker 1: thought that maybe she could work on those kinds of
Speaker 1: things with kids. The graduates of phonuss program were actually
Speaker 1: hired by the Board of Education in Bridgeport to perform
Speaker 1: teeth cleaning clinics in schools, and because of this work,
Speaker 1: Dr Phonus is known as the father of dental hygiene.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventeen, his cousin Irene Newman became known as
Speaker 1: the first person to have a dental hygiene license, even
Speaker 1: though dental assistants were around for decades before hygienists. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until nineteen twenty four that the American Dental Assistance
Speaker 1: Association was founded. This group was created by juliet A.
Speaker 1: Sotherd and other dental assistants in New York. They had
Speaker 1: heard of other smaller dental assistant groups in places like Nebraska.
Speaker 1: In nine nine, the a d a A established a
Speaker 1: scholarship for dental assistants that continues today. It is called
Speaker 1: the Juliet A. Solid Scholarship. Yeah, I was impressed in
Speaker 1: doing this research that that scholarship was set up within
Speaker 1: just a few years of them establishing as a group.
Speaker 1: Although the first dental laboratory had opened in New York
Speaker 1: City in the eighteen fifties, it wasn't until eighteen eighties
Speaker 1: seven that a commercial dental lab opened that became the
Speaker 1: Stow and Eddie Dental Laboratory. Prior to this, most dentists
Speaker 1: performed their own lab work, but once an industrial option
Speaker 1: was available, most practices started to hand off that kind
Speaker 1: of work that they were doing, like creating crowns and
Speaker 1: bridges two labs, because the whole thing was a lot
Speaker 1: more efficient that way. In eighteen ninety, i'd a grade
Speaker 1: graduated from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, and
Speaker 1: this made her the first black one in the US
Speaker 1: to receive a dental degree. Her story and dental medicine
Speaker 1: started when she was a teenager living with her aunt
Speaker 1: and she got a job working as an assistant to
Speaker 1: a dentist named Jonathan Taft. Taft was tasked by the
Speaker 1: University of Michigan with setting up their dental college just
Speaker 1: as Ida was graduating from high school. Taft advocated on
Speaker 1: her behalf for admittance and prepared her for the entrance exam.
Speaker 1: Once she had her degree, I had opened up a
Speaker 1: practice in Cincinnati, Ohio, and she ran a very successful business.
Speaker 1: According to a book written about prominent black women of
Speaker 1: the area in eighteen ninety three, her clientele were evenly
Speaker 1: split among black and white patients. She practiced for almost
Speaker 1: thirty years before retiring in ninety She lived into her eighties,
Speaker 1: dying in nineteen fifty three. Coming up, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about some realizations about the causes and effects of
Speaker 1: some dental conditions, as well as the birth of orthodontics
Speaker 1: as a field, and we'll get into all of that
Speaker 1: after pause for a sponsor break. The same year that
Speaker 1: Ida Gray received her dental degree. Eight ten ninety, an
Speaker 1: article titled micro Organisms of the Human Mouth was published
Speaker 1: by Willoughby D. Miller. Miller lived and worked in Berlin,
Speaker 1: and he was a professor at the University of Berlin,
Speaker 1: but he was a US citizen born in Ohio. Miller
Speaker 1: is credited with making the connection that bacteria led to
Speaker 1: tooth decay in a process that he described and which
Speaker 1: came to be known as the chemical parasitic theory. Basically,
Speaker 1: when eating food causes sugar levels to rise in your mouth,
Speaker 1: bacteria gets right on in there to naw on that,
Speaker 1: and they produce acid and that breaks down the tooth
Speaker 1: and thus cavities. This idea that your mouth was full
Speaker 1: of microorganisms that were causing tooth decay really catalyzed the
Speaker 1: messaging that we still here today that healthy teeth and
Speaker 1: gums require regular brushing flossing. While orthodontia, so the correction
Speaker 1: of irregularities in the teeth, had been practiced since the
Speaker 1: middle of the nineteenth century, it really wasn't recognized as
Speaker 1: a specialty for quite some time. In nineteen hundred, doctor
Speaker 1: Edward Hartley Angle established the Angle School of Orthodontia in St. Louis, Missouri,
Speaker 1: as it was just kind of formalizing lectures and training
Speaker 1: he had been giving to other dentists for years. By
Speaker 1: that point, he had been practicing orthodontia exclusively since eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety two. The school's creation firmly established the field and
Speaker 1: earned Angle the nickname the Father of Orthodontics. It's a
Speaker 1: relatively short educational cycle of just a few weeks, because
Speaker 1: the students were already licensed dentists who wanted training in
Speaker 1: this specific discipline. The American Society of Orthodontia, formed by
Speaker 1: one of his early graduating classes, was established in nineteen
Speaker 1: o one, and by nineteen oh seven the idea of
Speaker 1: focusing on orthodonics as a specialty became established enough that
Speaker 1: there was a journal, American Orthodontist. The American Board of
Speaker 1: Orthodonics was established in nineteen thirty. On February nineteen o six,
Speaker 1: US Patent number eight one to five five four was
Speaker 1: issued to German chemist Alfred Einhorn for his invention alkennin
Speaker 1: esters of para amino benzoic acid in search for an
Speaker 1: anesthetic that could replace the addictive and dangerous option of
Speaker 1: cocaine that was being used by the medical profession at
Speaker 1: the time. He had created a substance called procaine, which
Speaker 1: was later known by the more common name you probably recognize, novocaine,
Speaker 1: meaning a new cane. Although novacaine offered a less powerful
Speaker 1: anesthetic option, it was also so much safer than cocaine
Speaker 1: that dentists really embraced it. It was not, to be clear,
Speaker 1: the first synthetic anesthetic, amila cane, was created two years
Speaker 1: earlier by Ernest four No and novocaine wasn't created for dentistry.
Speaker 1: It was intended for general surgeries, but because it was
Speaker 1: a local numbing agent and not something that would make
Speaker 1: a patient unconscious, which most surgeons really really wanted to
Speaker 1: be the case, surgeons did not really want to use it,
Speaker 1: but it was perfect for dentistry. I am forty six
Speaker 1: years old and just noticed the suffix cane on all
Speaker 1: of these and products. In night, a two volume book
Speaker 1: called Operative Dentistry was published by Green Varnam and Black.
Speaker 1: Mr Black was really quite an interesting character in a
Speaker 1: variety of ways, but he's most known for his contributions
Speaker 1: to dentistry. Well before the book we just mentioned came out,
Speaker 1: he had been an innovator in the field. He had
Speaker 1: invented motors for use with dental drills. He had patented
Speaker 1: improvements to the drills themselves. He had written about micro
Speaker 1: organisms and the ways they produced substances that can be
Speaker 1: poison this to humans. He'd written books on dental anatomy,
Speaker 1: and had created standards and practices for the treatment and
Speaker 1: filling of cavities that were adopted by dentists throughout the
Speaker 1: US and Europe. Just the name a few. Operative dentistry
Speaker 1: continued to standardize the field by establishing clear protocols for
Speaker 1: various procedures. Yeah, and if you recall earlier in this episode,
Speaker 1: we mentioned that he really formed the first stable, consistent
Speaker 1: amalgam that people were willing to use and recognized as safe.
Speaker 1: And because of all of these achievements, of course lots
Speaker 1: of people wanted to meet with him, and he was
Speaker 1: invited specifically to speak to the Colorado State Dental Association
Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine. And that invitation had been catalyzed
Speaker 1: by a dentist named Frederick Mackay who had a practice
Speaker 1: in Colorado Springs. And this was really because Mackay wanted
Speaker 1: to ask the esteemed expert about a phenomenon that he
Speaker 1: had noticed in a lot of his patients, rather intense
Speaker 1: brown stains on their teeth. This was so common in
Speaker 1: the area that it had the nickname of Colorado brown stain,
Speaker 1: and when Black arrived in Colorado Springs, he too immediately
Speaker 1: noticed that even young children there had these stained teeth.
Speaker 1: The people was stained teeth, though, had what seemed like
Speaker 1: a natural resistance to tooth decay. To be clear, these
Speaker 1: were not any sort of um early cavities or indicators
Speaker 1: of disease. It was literally just discoloration. So Black, who
Speaker 1: was intrigued, kind of worked on this puzzle until he
Speaker 1: died in nineteen fifteen. But even after he died, McKay
Speaker 1: continued and eventually it was discovered that waterborne fluoride was
Speaker 1: leaning to the staining. That staining is known today as fluorosis,
Speaker 1: and that discovery connected with the recognition that some fluoride
Speaker 1: exposure led to resistance to cavities. That led to the
Speaker 1: development of fluoridated drinking water with a level of fluoride
Speaker 1: that would confer health benefits to the two enamel without
Speaker 1: the negative cosmetic side effects of the staining. This work
Speaker 1: on developing fluoridation plans took decades, but in nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first city on earth to
Speaker 1: have fluoridated drinking water. And eleven years of collecting data
Speaker 1: on the oral health of the children of Grand Rapids,
Speaker 1: it was determined that the rate of tooth decay and
Speaker 1: those children had dropped by sixty per cent. Today, more
Speaker 1: than two hundred million people in the US benefit from
Speaker 1: fluoridation projects, and fluoride is touted as an ingredient in
Speaker 1: toothpastes and mouthwashes, all because of some stain teeth in
Speaker 1: The National Institute of Dental Research was established by congressional
Speaker 1: bill which was signed by President Harry S. Truman. This
Speaker 1: established an institution that could study issues of oral health
Speaker 1: in the US, with money from the federal government to
Speaker 1: back that research. One of the things that had motivated
Speaker 1: this was actually a World War two because a significant
Speaker 1: number of otherwise seemingly healthy men had been rejected for
Speaker 1: military service because they had missing teeth or significant dental disease,
Speaker 1: and this had indicated that this was a significant potential
Speaker 1: health issue for the country. The man selected to lead
Speaker 1: the n i d R was Henry Trendley Dean. He
Speaker 1: had been in charge of the dental division at the
Speaker 1: National Institute of Health beginning in nineteen thirty one, and
Speaker 1: it was Dean who Frederick Mackay had appealed to and
Speaker 1: that role to look at the fluoridation question more closely,
Speaker 1: which is what had led to the testing program in
Speaker 1: Grand rapids. In nineteen fifty, two years into his tenure
Speaker 1: at the n I d R, Dean was featured in
Speaker 1: an article in Tick magazine that was a trade periodical
Speaker 1: published by the Taconium Company. The article opened with quote,
Speaker 1: the shape of things to come in dentistry is now
Speaker 1: being projected in research units which were being augmented all
Speaker 1: over America. For the first time in history, a coordinated
Speaker 1: nationwide attack on dental disease is underway. This right up
Speaker 1: gives some statistics about this program and mentions that two
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve thousand dollars annually were being spent on
Speaker 1: research studies at the n I d R and that
Speaker 1: there were quote thirty six separate projects underway at the
Speaker 1: time of the articles writing. Dean is quoted in the
Speaker 1: article is saying, quote, we are making it possible for
Speaker 1: the total resources of dentistry to be applied to the
Speaker 1: tremendous problems of dental disease on a scale never before possible.
Speaker 1: This is, in a very real sense, dentistry's own program,
Speaker 1: with dentists participating in policy making and in program planning,
Speaker 1: with dentists supervising and directing research projects, and with dentists
Speaker 1: doing actual research themselves. And i DR's name changed to
Speaker 1: the National Institute of Dental and cranio Facial Research in
Speaker 1: the seventy four years since the institute was established, there
Speaker 1: of been projects headed by the dentil researchers that touched
Speaker 1: on a lot of issues, including cancer, arthritis, and cystic fibrosis,
Speaker 1: as well as many others. They have done a number
Speaker 1: of studies, for example, of HIV and AIDS and bigger
Speaker 1: global issues of how like public health is impacting the
Speaker 1: populations of the world. They do a lot of cool
Speaker 1: projects here. Um. The dental field continues, of course to evolve.
Speaker 1: Advancements like improved resins and products like at home tooth
Speaker 1: whitening and even the use of lasers to treat tooth
Speaker 1: decay and gum disease are actually all pretty relatively recent
Speaker 1: developments in the field. There are an estimated one point
Speaker 1: six million dentists practicing globally. But even so, a lot
Speaker 1: of people are not getting adequate dental care. A U
Speaker 1: S News and World Report article from July reported that
Speaker 1: even before the pandemic, and estimated one third of adults
Speaker 1: in the US weren't getting regular dental care. Some of
Speaker 1: this is a any issue, the whole thing, where dental
Speaker 1: insurance is a separate thing from health insurance, and that
Speaker 1: even with the insurance, it's still really expensive to have
Speaker 1: anything other than just like regular cleanings. It's a big issue. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of it is an availability issue. For example, in
Speaker 1: rural areas, dentist sorrow often a lot farther away for
Speaker 1: most people, or practices that exist don't have enough hygenis
Speaker 1: or dental assistance to serve their communities. People are also
Speaker 1: just scared of the dentist yes. Uh. And on a
Speaker 1: global scale, according to the World Health Organizations Report Global
Speaker 1: Burden of Disease Study twenty nineteen, oral disease often preventable
Speaker 1: because we're talking about things like tooth decay and gum
Speaker 1: disease being the most prevalent in their statistics, those diseases
Speaker 1: affect nearly three point five billion people worldwide, and one
Speaker 1: of the biggest problems, according to that report is quote
Speaker 1: unequal distribution of oral health professionals and a lack of
Speaker 1: appropriate health facilities to meet population needs. So we've come
Speaker 1: a long way, but we still have some big problems
Speaker 1: to solve. Yeah. Yeah, And there are so many health
Speaker 1: issues that can be connected back to untreated dental problems.
Speaker 1: I kind of hated the whole division between between dentistry
Speaker 1: and medicine is like, that's a whole other topic, but
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that I find really frustrating
Speaker 1: just in my own everyday life. Yeah I um, Like
Speaker 1: I said, I was terrified of the dentist for a
Speaker 1: long time and then found the right dental practice for
Speaker 1: me to talk about in our behind the scenes and
Speaker 1: it has made all the difference on Earth. Um. I
Speaker 1: also have some fun listener mail. This made me laugh
Speaker 1: so hard. It may just be me, but it hits
Speaker 1: all of my key delight points. So this is from
Speaker 1: our listener Betsy, who writes High Holly and Tracy. The
Speaker 1: microwave episode brought back memories of my family's first microwave,
Speaker 1: which we got probably in the early seventies. My mother
Speaker 1: wanted one, but it was expensive, So while my father
Speaker 1: was on a week long fishing trip, she was a
Speaker 1: bit annoyed about that, she bought the microwave. We tried
Speaker 1: all sorts of cooking experiments that week. The most memorable
Speaker 1: one was a cake. It came out very odd looking
Speaker 1: on the surface, bumps, divots, ridges, and holes. My brother
Speaker 1: and I decorated the cake with paper flags on toothpicks
Speaker 1: labeled with names of features of the moon because the
Speaker 1: cake definitely looked like the surface of the moon. Thanks
Speaker 1: for sparking a walkdown memory lane with my mother about
Speaker 1: our first microwave. She does not remember the moon cake. Betsy, Betsy,
Speaker 1: I love the idea that too. Kids came up with
Speaker 1: this idea of labeling a cake with all of the
Speaker 1: features of the moon. This is like a magical bit
Speaker 1: of imaginative interaction with food, and I'm all behind it now.
Speaker 1: I want to make a moon cake. I love the Moon,
Speaker 1: as you may or may not recall, I have a
Speaker 1: tattoo of the first map of the Moon. Oh yeah
Speaker 1: um on my leg. So so the idea of making
Speaker 1: a cake that looks like it even more hilarious and wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing this with me. Now
Speaker 1: I want to make some microwave cake and just uh
Speaker 1: probably won't label it. I'll just eat it. But if
Speaker 1: you would like to write to us about your successful
Speaker 1: or not microwave cakes or anything. Uh, you know we've
Speaker 1: said many times animals, foods, anything in our episode. Whatever
Speaker 1: delights you. Still loving those recipes, keep them coming. You
Speaker 1: can do so at History podcast at i heeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us on social media
Speaker 1: as Missed in History, and you can subscribe to the
Speaker 1: show on the I heart Radio app or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History
Speaker 1: Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
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Speaker 1: H