The following text has been transcribed from the Internet Archive online version of what appears to be a microfilm of a mimeographed journal. Although the title limits its subject to 1810, it in fact mentions individuals and institutions in the 1840s and ’50s. — George P. Landow
The well-known historian of medicine and dentistry, Walter Artelt; has published an article, "Zahnarzt und Zahnheilkunde in Deutschland um 1857" (ZM 46:12- 17, January 1, 1958), which among other things brings up the question of early dental education.
In the latter eighteenth century and early nineteenth, considerable interest in Europe and America was manifest regarding instruction in dental subjects. Whereas dentists had been trained in their professional work as apprentices or students of other dentists for several centuries and continued to be trained through this sort of preceptorship for several decades after 1840, yet in the 75 years preceding 1840 dentists began to urge the establishment of dental schools and to institute lectures on dental subjects here and there throughout the world. Some instances of such lectures have been reported, but no attempt has been made to collect the evidence for this important development in dental education. To the fragmentary list here set down (some of which was. supplied by Artelt's article), readers of the Bulletin who are students. of dentalemia might add many more.
In America is the well-known instance of lectures given by Horace Hayden to medical students in the University of Maryland during the years 1823, 1824, and 1825, at least. There is also the less convincingly established instance of lectures given by sane. Harris in the Transylvania University in the years 1835 and the teaching of dentists by other early Americans is sometimes represented as institutional instruction, but, even if somewhat more elaborate than the average instruction of the apprentice or preceptoral sort, it belongs in the latter category. This is true of John Harris' so-called school at Bainbridge, Ohio, and the lectures given by Dr. Foulke in 1787 and L. S. Parmly, about 1820. S. S. Fitch, in the preface of his 1835 edition of the System of Dental Surgery, notes that he has spent two winters delivering "courses of scientific and demonstrative lectures upon the principles and practice of Dental Surgery", which were probably to private pupils.
In England it has been established that William Rae delivered lectures on dentistry, probably at first in John Hunter's house, in 1782. A student's notes on what is believed to be Rae's lectures were published by John Tomes in the British Journal of Dental Science, 1856-1857. Rae was suceeded in 1799 by Joseph Fox, who delivered his lectures in Guy's Hospital. In turn, he was suceeded by Thomas Bell in 1817 and by James Salter, in 1862, James Snell, in his Practical Guide to Operations on the Teeth (1832), subscribes himself as‘ "Lecturer on the Anatomy and, Disease of the Teeth" but does not say where. George Durance lectured on dental surgery at the University College, London, beginning 1843.
In France, C. F. Delabarre styles himself "Professeur de Mala- dies de la Bouche, a l'Administration gendrale des Hopitaux civils de Paris" sinde 1817 and indicates that his books on the second dentition and mechanical dentistry are in the nature of lectures for students.
In Germany, Carl August Andrée, as Curt Proskauer has indicated (Bulletin, Vol. II, August, 1954), was Lehrer der Zahnchirurgie at the Collegium Medico-Chirurgicum of Dresden, appointed in 1786, Carl Joseph Ringelmann gave instruction’ in dentistry at the University of Wurzburg, beginning in 1803, Notes on the lece- tures given by Justus A. Arnemann probably at the University of Gbttingen in 1799 have been published (Correspondenz-Blatt fur Zahndrzte 52:183-190, 1928).
In Austria, George Carabelli, as a professor of dentistry, gave lectures from 1821 to 1842 in the Josephinum Academy attached to the University of Vienna,
In Czechoslovakia, Franz Nessel was professor of dentistry at the Hochschule of Prague from 1828. His handbuch (1840) was written for his students.
Bibliography
“Institutional Dental Instruction before 1810.” Bulletin of the History of Dentistry: The official monthly publication of American Academy of the History of Dentistry. 6.1 (January 1958): 1-2.
Last modified 28 March 2022