The Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry (review)

The National Museum of Dentistry is located, appropriately enough, at “the world’s first dental school,” the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery (founded 1840). It strives to be a repository of dental history and folklore, a teaching resource on oral hygiene, and a tribute to people and institutions important in dentistry. These goals are achieved with considerable success, in a pleasant two-story gallery adjacent to Davidge Hall (the University of Maryland facility in continuous use for medical education since 1812).

Many of the museum’s exhibits feature primary source material, in settings designed to draw the interest of the casual visitor as well as the historian or dental practitioner.* Notable in this regard are the “Tower of Chairs,” the period dental office, and the displays of instruments and dental hygiene paraphernalia.

The museum shows appropriate sensitivity to issues of race and gender. In an entertaining display on “Fabulous Feats,” the toothy achievements of a woman trapeze artist and a black cowboy are noted. And while there are areas celebrating women dentists and black dentists, more impressive to this reviewer was the emphasis placed on the dental hygienist—the occupational embodiment of preventive care, and a job category feminized from its inception.

Popular culture is handled with good humor. A mock movie theater marquee provides opportunity to view excerpts of films featuring slapstick depictions of dentists, and a jukebox in the form of an open mouth gives the visitor of a certain age and nostalgic bent the opportunity to revisit old television commercials for toothpaste and mouthwash.

The single least-successful area is “Faces Front and Center,” in which the smiling portraits of celebrities need to be updated. This display, moreover, fails to challenge the viewer to consider that the mouth and teeth are always seen within the context of the entire face. Darwin on the expression of emotions would have been a useful source here. Should this exhibit be revised, the curator would do well to pay attention to filmmaker Errol Morris’s recent discussion of the smiles seen in the snapshots taken at Abu Ghraib prison.

Among the more satisfying smaller exhibits are areas dealing with the tooth fairy, cosmetic mutilation of the teeth, and teeth in religion (including a set of Andy Warhol silk screens of Apollonia, patron saint of dentistry). The George Washington gallery busts the myth of the wooden teeth and makes good use of portraiture to illustrate how dental problems affected Washington’s physiognomy.

Having failed to make advance preparation, this reviewer cannot report on the museum’s McCauley Library of the History of Dentistry, which houses an extensive collection of posters as well as “rare dental publications, photographs, and archival documents.” The recorded audio tour is well worth the extra dollar. Visitors seriously interested in understanding the exhibits should make the investment and would do well to leave themselves at least three hours to view everything. On the other hand, those with limited time can have a profitable experience in less than an hour.

This museum makes much of its formal affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution, but perhaps the most important connection between the two institutions is that the late Audrey Davis, long-time curator of medical history at the Smithsonian, helped design the Baltimore facility. In many ways the dental museum reflects Davis’s museum skills and the breadth of her understanding of the history of science and technology.

By a 2003 resolution of Congress, the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry was made the official national dental museum in the United States. To the extent that the United States needs an official museum of dentistry, this one serves the purpose well.