For the ADA Sesquicentennial: A Special Salute

Wide publicity has been accorded the 2009 celebrations of the American Dental Association’s (ADA) Sesquicentennial. A variety of events have been planned by officials of the organization and invitations to attend a multitude of programs have been issued to dentists across the nation. Since the 1959 commemoration of the ADA Centennial, the profession has been involved in noteworthy experiences that have contributed to dentistry’s respectability as an indispensable unit of the health team.

Over the years, there also have been circumstances that tested the character of dental professionals when confronted by detractors from other health professions. As dentistry’s official representative, ADA has been directly involved with achievements in dental educational processes, with transitions in oral health research programs, with dental practitioner business concerns, and with aberrations in the health of the public.

For more than a century, ADA and Northwestern University Dental School (NUDS) enjoyed a tradition of mutual cooperation, later facilitated by close headquarters locations in Chicago. They developed a special inter-organizational kinship that played a stellar role in resisting domination and derision by the established medical profession while together striving eagerly to enhance dentistry’s own professional independence.

In the 50 years since the ADA Centennial, one particular occurrence disheartened the nation’s dental educators and discouraged champions of organized dentistry. That event was the ill-timed declaration of intent to close NUDS. This occurred in 1997 just six years after the school had celebrated its own superb Centennial in 1991. Official cessation of educational activities at NUDS was finalized by 2001.

It was anticipated that there would be widespread reactions to unconfirmed rumors of pending closure of NUDS, and in turn profound sorrow would accompany actual termination of the school when efforts by national dental leaders failed to prevent its ultimate demise. At the time, ADA was being served by Executive Director James Bramson who expressed the Association’s deep regrets over this unfortunate development.

The ADA Sesquicentennial would seem to be an appropriate time and place to review ADA/NUDS historic interrelationships and render voluntary salutations to their record of an enduring unity that benefited both and scientific dentistry in general.

Early American Dentistry and ADA Beginning

In the early 19th century, many people practicing dentistry did so without any established training. Dental intervention was perceived as a mechanical activity requiring only manipulative dexterity to extract diseased teeth. In American villages and country towns, dentistry was practiced by barbers, blacksmiths and other everyday craftsmen.¹ Additionally, some physicians believed that dentistry was an adjunct to medicine and they provided many dental services. Generally, dentistry was not accepted as a full-fledged health profession. Competent dental training was obtained through preceptorial arrangements and apprenticeship. Many trainees enrolled in dental establishments to acquire their knowledge and skills. Pretensions and quackery, prevalent in both medicine and dentistry, proved to be excellent sources of income for enterprising practitioners.

As time passed, the growing public demand for reliable and satisfactory health care advanced the growth and development of medical and dental schools. By mid-19th century the desire to establish and maintain standards in the delivery of dental services led to the development of the National Association of State Boards of Dental Examiners in 1883, and the National Association of Dental Faculties in 1884. The two organizations² played vital roles in elevating dental educational standards and even instituted admission policies that required the medical (MD) degree as a prerequisite for the study of dentistry. That requirement proved to be impractical and was soon changed to admit matriculants with fundamental academic qualifications.

ADA’s history begins in the mid-19th century, when leaders in dentistry saw the need to organize and strengthen themselves by forming a national dental society.³ Efforts in this direction had been made first in 1840 when the American Society of Dental Surgeons was initiated. However, growth and development were slow, and differences in regional philosophies and geographic locations combined to assure an abbreviated life span of that initial Society and its immediate successor (the American Dental Convention). Nearly two decades later, in 1859, the American Dental Association...