Timeline of Dental History

Beginning of Time

tooth decay is noted

3000 BC

First dentist, Hesi-Re is recorded

460-322 BC

Written information about tooth decoy is recorded by Aristotle and Hippocrates.

460- 377 BC

Oath of Hippocrates (Hippocrates)

384- 322 BC

Attention to oral hygiene (Diocles of Carystus)

1300- 1368

Hygienic rules (Guy de Chauliac)

1452- 1519

Tooth morphology identified (Leonardo da Vinci)

1678- 1761

Founder of modern dentistry (Pierre Fauchard)

1760- 1819

Josiah Flagg develops the dental chair

1768- 1770

Paul Revere places advertisements in a Boston newspaper offering his services as a dentist

1790

James B. Morrison constructs the first known dental foot engine, which he adapted from his mother’s spinning-wheel foot treadle

1832

James Snell invests the first reclining dental chair

1840

• Horace Hayden and Chapin Harris established the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery

• American Society of Dental Surgeons established

1841

Alabama enacts the first dental practice act to regulate dentistry

1844

Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, discovers that nitrous oxide can be used for dental pain relief

1859

American Dental Association (ADA) created

1866

Lucy Beaman Hobbs Taylor, becomes the first women to earn a dental degree, graduate from Ohio College of Dental Surgery

1869

Dr. Robbert Tanner Freeman, the first African-American to earn a dental degree, graduate from Harvard University Dental Science

1871

First commercially manufactured foot-treadle dental engine is patented by James B. Morrison

1885

First “lady in attendance” employed by Dr. C. Edmund Kells

1890

Dr. Ida Gray, the first African-American women to earn a dental degree, graduates from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry

1895

X-rays discovered (Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen)

1907

“Lost wax” casting machine is invented by William Taggart

1913

Fones school of Dental Hygiene established

1923

American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA) created

1924

American Dental Assistants Association (ADAA) established; first president was Juliette Southard

1930

First dental speciality board is funded, the American Board of Orthodontics

1938

First synthetic bristle (nylon) toothbrush appears on the market

1945

Water fluoridation era begins in the cities of Newburgh, New York and Grand Rapids, Michigan

1947

Dental Assiting National Board, Inc. (DANB) is established

1950

First fluoride toothpastes are marketed

1960

Four-handed, sit-down dentistry is utilized

1970

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is created by the US Congress

1982

Hepatitis B vaccine becomes available

1989

Tooth-whitening commercial products are marketed

1992

Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Bloodborne Pathogens Standard becomes effective

1997

The laser, approved by the Food and Drug Administration, is used to treat tooth decay