If any of you have ever experienced severe toothache, you will be glad of modern dentists. John Smith was not only the co-pioneer of The Royal Hospital for Sick Children in 1860, but in that same year he also founded the Edinburgh Dental Dispensary with three other dentist colleagues: Francis Brodie Imlach, Peter Orphoot and Robert Nasmyth. John Smith was a Presbyterian elder at St Andrews Parish Church, and Francis Imlach was also an elder at St Stephen’s Church in Stockbridge. By 1879 their work had developed into the Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School, with the twin vision of providing dental treatment for the poor, and training up dentists in a professional way. Before this, back-street dentistry had been commonplace in Scotland, with competent and charlatan practitioners operating in an unregulated fashion. At the beginning the dispensary gave free treatment for the poor, which at first operated in 1 Drummond St, and then moved to 54 Cockburn St in 1862. They struggled with raising funds and moved to a cheaper location at 46 Cockburn St.
The four friends worked together to revolutionise dental standards in Scotland, with Imlach being the first person in history to use Simpson’s chloroform anaesthetic in a dental procedure, and Nasmyth went on to pioneer modern gold fillings for teeth. The four friends also pressed for government reform in dental practice, alongside their English colleagues, so that only properly qualified dentists could practice. In 1878 the Dental Act was passed, thereby ensuring that only professionals could be on the official register. This gave backing to the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh who set up a Dental Examining Board and the issuing of the official Licence for Dental Surgery. A new and better premises was found in 1894 at 18 Brown Square, which is now 30-31 Chambers St, opposite the National Museum, where a dental school and hospital were combined. The Edinburgh Dental School was taken over as part of the University of Edinburgh Faculty of Medicine in 1948.
Today’s Edinburgh Dental Institute continues in the same standard of excellence as its Christian founders, who pioneered the Dental Dispensary in 1860. John Smith became the President of the British Dental Association and was the private dentist to Queen Victoria when she came to this nation. He was also the first person in Scotland, in 1856, to give a dentistry course to medical students. It is to be noted that Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School celebrated Lily Lindsay as the first woman graduate dentist in British history in 1895.
“Heal the sick…” (Matthew 10:8, NKJV).
Image: Kim Traynor, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
NOTE: The year of D-Day in the last article on penicillin should have been 1944, not 1945.