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Two hundred years ago the occupational boundaries between different medical practitioners were blurred and unspecified, with many practicing in several fields. However the 1815 Apothecaries Act had a major impact on both the emerging pharmaceutical and dental professions. The 1878 and 1921 Dentists Acts enabled pharmacists who did some dentistry to continue practicing dentistry. Changes proposed by the British Dental Association (BDA) resulted in the formation of a Chemists Dental Association in 1910 to defend the interests of this group, which continued in existence until 1951. This paper explores the changing relationship between chemists and dentists from the early nineteenth century through to the early twenty-first century. Sources used include the published work of both dental and pharmaceutical historians, documentary sources, and quotations from oral history interviews.

A description of how a dentist could establish a practice in the UK in the 1980s.

Discussions regarding the use of hypnotism in dentistry featured prominently in dental journals and society proceedings during the decades around the turn of the twentieth century. Many dentists used hypnotic suggestion either as the sole anesthetic for extractions or in conjunction with local and general anesthetics for excavation and cavity filling. With the heralding of humanitarian dentistry and improved local anesthesia around 1905, a number of dentists advocated using suggestion psychology to calm nervous patients and increase their comfort and satisfaction levels while undergoing dental procedures. The practice of hypnotic suggestion with local and general anesthesia in providing patients with increasingly painless procedures constituted the earliest variety of behavioral dentistry, a discipline not fully developed until the closing decades of the twentieth century. Hypnosis and suggestion became driving forces for psychological applications in the formative years of behavioral dentistry., (© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Vilmos Vajna was born in Transylvania. His medical education was completed at Franz Joseph University of Arts and Sciences in Kolozsvár. He studied dental sciences in Vienna and Pest. After returning to Kolozsvár he obtained his habilitation ("venia legendi") and then lectured dentistry at this university. After finishing his academic carrier he moved to Budapest in 1895. While he practiced dentistry in his private office he made several technical innovations, constructed new instruments, and invented new technologies. He was an active member of the public life of the dental community.

The Apothecaries Act of 1815, (revised by the Act of 1825) has been credited with being the most important forward step in the education of the general medical profession in the nineteenth century, although a closely argued revisionist view of its significance by S W F Holloway makes clear his view that it was also a successful and deeply reactionary political move by the physicians to emasculate a rival group growing rapidly in numbers and power. This paper demonstrates that the Act also created a distance between the true dentists and others, like the chemists and druggists, who carried out dental functions. By so doing the Act defined the social identity of the profession of dentistry, in its numbers, status, nineteenth century reform and pattern of education. The paper proposes the apothecary/general medical practitioner as a social as well as ethical role model for the general dental practitioner.

In the last of a series of five articles in which we look at each of the practice finalists from the Focus Awards 2001, we visit 68 The Dental Practice in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

For 44 years Dr Hugo A. Owens was a distinguished practitioner and community leader in Portsmouth and Chesapeake, Virginia, and also served for a time as president of the National Dental Association. Besides his proclivity for dentistry, he was driven by two other passions: politics and civil rights. In 1970 he was one of the first African Americans ever elected to the Chesapeake City Council. He was reelected for the next term and appointed vice mayor, a position he held for 8 years. His political successes were preceded by his activities as a civil rights leader, which began in 1950 and lasted through the 1960s. In a remarkable series of negotiations and litigations, Dr Owens was the prime mover in the desegregation of the city of Portsmouth. In all three "careers," Dr Owens used dentistry as a home base for the expression of his activist philosophy of providing help for others when they were unable to help themselves.

For Minnesota dentists with long memories, Dr Jack Echternacht is a legendary figure. He graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry in 1943. Except for a 3-year enlistment in the Navy during World War II, he has made his home and his professional life in Brainerd, on the edge of Minnesota's lake country. A few years after he started his general practice, reports began to appear about the striking reduction of dental caries in children's teeth when fluoride was placed in the drinking water. Excited by these prospects for better oral health, Dr Echternacht led a Chamber of Commerce initiative in 1954 to introduce fluoride into Brainerd's water supply. What seemed at first an easy victory turned into a 30-year struggle. Dr Echternacht's determination, persistence, and leadership during this fight for fluoridation led to his selection as a moral model in dentistry.

The core competency statement of the Academy of General Dentistry is "Quality of care through lifelong learning". This article traces the history of the Academy from its founding in 1952 through the development of its programs in Fellowships and Masterships, the Fellowship Exam, the American Board of General Dentistry, the National Sponsor Approval Program, and its recent efforts to reaffirm and sharpen its mission.

There has been increasing interest in the organization and accreditation of Postdoctoral General Dentistry Programs (PGD). In addition, numerous national organizations have called for increases in the number of first postdoctoral year (PGY-1) positions and programs. At the same time there has been a movement to incorporate concepts of competency-based education into dental education programs in order to stress the outcomes of education rather then the process. These movements have coincided with an increased recognition that dental education will be affected by the changing demographics of our population, the emerging trends in health care delivery and financing, and the need for an increase in the number of primary care providers in dentistry, trained at an advanced level, who are capable of caring for an increasingly socially diverse and medically complex population in our country in the next century. This paper reviews the history of postdoctoral education programs in dentistry and medicine with a focus on PGD education, describes the changing health care environment in which future dental professionals will practice, and relates the dental postdoctoral experience to that in medicine. A strategy is presented for the dental profession to prepare dental practitioners with the competencies needed for the future and to create enough training opportunities to prepare these practitioners to care for the oral health needs of the nation. This proposal calls for a "National Consensus Development Conference on the Future of Postdoctoral Primary Care Education in Dentistry". This conference would define the strategies necessary to prepare dental practitioners with the competencies needed for the future and develop approaches to create enough training opportunities to prepare these practitioners to care for the oral health needs of the nation.

In order to, understand the development of the National Health Service, we need to look at the state of orthodontics in the country prior to its introduction in 1948. This article considers the various factors which contributed to orthodontics' development in the NHS. The progress of this specialty is described together with comments on its future in the NHS.

Since the second world war, dentistry has undergone momentous changes, not only in clinical and mechanical developments but also in changes in people's perceptions of what care their dentist can offer them. Dental graduates today will be surprised at the great difference between their own education and that of their 1946 counterparts. This is one dentist's record of the last 50 years in dentistry and how certain advancements have affected his working life.

This paper considers some of the specific factors which have changed the role of the dentist in a historical context. The impact of post-war developments on postgraduate education, the Nuffield Inquiry of 1980 and the Dental Strategy Review Group are examined. The broader scope of the dentist and dental auxiliaries in general dental practice in the light of changes in disease patterns is described. The benefits to patient care of involving the general dental practitioner and the dental team in primary care services are emphasised. There is a need to educate and train all health care professionals together to promote multidisciplinary teamwork in clinical practice. Change is inevitable but is to be welcomed more than feared.