Dentistry: Innovation and education

This plant is sacred, as well as crucial in practical terms. All Dhuwa clans sing of the growth of the pandanus. But for others, there is a deeper connection. In some songs the teeth of this plant are equated with the reversed teeth of the shark. The Dhudi-Djapu have a sacred site associated with the Morning Star, in which the songs connect the passage of that star with a pandanus tree on the floodplain. Gaḻpuŋniny is the name of a special crook, up to three metres long and cut on site or carried to the scene, which allows a woman to capture the few young upright leaves at the centre of the plant. These are the only leaves that can be used for weaving. The older bent ones are of no use.

The white stem part of each leaf can be pounded and used as an anaesthetic on sore teeth. When our kids lose their baby teeth, we throw them into the gunga tree. This toothy tree will ensure that their new teeth will come back quickly and be strong and sharp.

Ḻäḻuk, the orangey nuts, are a vital part of the bush sauna and of women’s ceremonies following birth. It smells beautiful after it has fallen to the ground. A vital antiseptic in the case of serious wounds like stingray barbs is the boḏuk (bush cockroach), which can almost always be found in this tree. The flammability of the leaves and trunk made this a natural torch in the old days.

The travels of Mäna the shark in ancestral past/present/future time are sung by various Dhuwa clans, including my Dhudi-Djapu. The cycle by the Gapudäyindimirri starts from Barparra through to the island Yirrinyarra. The pigeon Ŋapalawal in the coastal mangroves sings guguk, the incoming tide, the sound itself of the shark rushing through the water. Mäna rested here, leaving his sacred spear, Warrŋgul (made with many long stingray barbs and symbolic of his powerful, sharp teeth), under the shade of the wupularri (a special sacred pandanus palm site) before moving on. On inspecting the leaf of wupularri, the sharp barbs of Mäna’s teeth are felt.

Mulkuṉ Wirrpanda

The disparity in oral health between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is significant, and is worsened by the difficulties that regional and remote communities encounter in obtaining professional dental care. Indigenous children and adolescents in the Northern Territory are more likely than their non-Indigenous counterparts to have tooth decay. Yolngu communities experience up to four-and-a-half times more dental disease than non-Indigenous communities. Poor oral health is related to systemic health problems such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease and premature birth; it not only exacerbates chronic conditions, but can be a social determinant, such as a toothache that prevents a child from performing well at school.

Melbourne Dental School has been working with the Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation and other community and government organisations to improve oral health in remote communities in north-east Arnhem Land. This is part of a wider University of Melbourne partnership with the Yothu Yindi Foundation. This partnership has helped develop a community-led oral health plan for the region—a first—to enable collaboration under Yolngu leadership, fostering sustainability and self-determination. It covers such activities as providing access to fluorides, incorporating oral health into primary health care, expanding clinical care and preventive oral health interventions, and workforce development.

To help implement parts of the plan, staff and students of the University of Melbourne’s Bachelor of Oral Health, through an annual program of placements that incorporates Indigenous cultural practices and ideas into a mainstream approach to understanding and treating patients, have been helping deliver services and develop local ways to improve Indigenous oral health in remote communities. For example, many Arnhem Land children speak English as their third or fourth language, so the students developed picture books for them, using the character Baru the crocodile to encourage children’s toothbrushing. These were distributed to children through schools and clinics—to an enthusiastic response.

Everyone involved hopes that this long-term partnership will help fulfil the Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation mission: ‘To improve the health and wellbeing of residents of the communities of East Arnhem Land through the delivery of appropriate and comprehensive primary health care and to promote the control by Aboriginal communities of the conditions that create health.’

Professor Julie Satur

Evidence of the techniques and practices of the dental practitioner of the past survives in the collection of the University Museum Utrecht in the Netherlands. With 30,000 objects, it is one of the largest and most diverse collections of dentistry in the world. Some instruments displayed in the present exhibition are owned by the Royal Dutch Dental Association (founded in 1914) and belong to the Kalman Klein Collection. Klein (1885–1947), originally a Hungarian, practised dentistry in the Netherlands and assembled an extensive library of rare books about dentistry, as well as collecting several hundred dental engravings and many fine dental instruments, all of which tell us much about the history of dentistry.

Dr Reina de Raat

Germany and France, in particular, were at the forefront of dentistry in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In France this was probably initiated by the 1728 publication of the book Le chirurgien dentiste by Pierre Fauchard (1678–1761). This Frenchman, considered to be the founder of modern dentistry, based his work on a knowledge of anatomy and pathology. For example, he was the first to describe the connection between caries and the consumption of sugar.

During this period, an elite social class emerged in France, whose members paid much attention to physical appearance. Their particular ideal of beauty included having radiant white teeth. Thanks to a greater attention to oral hygiene, the toothbrush was introduced; the first toothbrush factories were soon established.

Dr Reina de Raat

In the mid-19th century, knowledge of dentistry in Anglo-Saxon countries increased rapidly. John Tomes (1815–1895) published his treatise on the dental forceps in England in 1841. Together with his instrument maker, Jean-Marie Evrard, Tomes devised forceps for extraction based on dental anatomy. These forceps became the standard and are still used today.

This was an exciting time, in which important inventions came one after another: anaesthesia became available thanks to the American dentist Horace Wells (1815–1848), while Charles and Nelson Goodyear introduced vulcanised rubber, which eventually replaced ivory and gold dentures, thus making dentures accessible to the masses.

In the 19th century, dentistry evolved into a profession that could no longer be compared to the extravagant tooth-drawers depicted in engravings. Rather, it became a speciality based on scientific knowledge, and would eventually develop into a field that is indispensable in health care today.

Dr Reina de Raat

In the days before dentistry was regarded as a profession, a person wishing to become a dentist was indentured to a practising dentist, usually for five years, to be trained in the surgical and mechanical aspects of the trade. This mainly entailed extracting teeth and the making and fitting of dentures.

On 12 January 1884, Andrew Balsillie (1831–1912) signed an indenture agreement with Bendigo dentist David Watson on behalf of his son, Francis James Balsillie (1868–1956). Francis had previously worked for three months with Watson, presumably as a trial period. The indenture states that he ‘will faithfully and diligently serve Mr Watson as his apprentice in the profession, practice and business of a Surgeon and Mechanical dentist’. Hours are 9 am until 6 pm, plus overtime as required. He must not steal or embezzle, must keep all secrets, and his behaviour must be exemplary and obedient.

Francis’ father was required to pay Watson £100 for the tuition, and provide his son with suitable clothing, board and lodging. Francis would be paid £13 per annum for the first three years, and £52 per year for the last two, presumably due to his increasing skills. If Watson were to sell or leave the practice, he would have to guarantee that the sale (to a respectable dentist) included Francis’ right to continue his apprenticeship without further payment by his father.

The apprenticeship must have been successful, as the manuscript has a final additional inscription: ‘I share much pleasure in stating that this … has been served faithfully and well—D Watson’. Francis then entered into an association with William Bell, a chemist and dentist in the Murray River town of Echuca. He travelled around, a common practice at that time, when dentists would visit small country towns, attending to patients in chemist shops, hotels and other premises. Eventually, in 1908, he set up practice in Kyabram in partnership with Mr H Hall, a graduate of the Melbourne Dental College. They had built a dental surgery described as a ‘thoroughly modern establishment’. Francis James Balsillie remained in Kyabram for 50 years, dying on 1 March 1956 at 87 years of age.

Dr Pamela Craig

On 31 August 1928 a certificate was issued by the Dental Board of Victoria, certifying George Harper Forster Turner (1888–1969) as a dentist qualified to practise in the State of Victoria, having gained his training through an apprenticeship to his uncle, John James Forster.

Part of the prelude to that apprenticeship arrangement was this hire-purchase agreement between John James Forster (‘Surgeon Dentist of 11 Swanston Street, Melbourne’), and his nephews William Walter John Turner, Frederick Charles Turner, George Harper Forster Turner and Alfred James Turner. It lists the contents of the surgery in Swanston Street as at 30 September 1921, ensuring commitment to and participation in the practice. Of particular interest to us today is the recent discovery of such items from John James Forster’s surgery during the Melbourne Metro Tunnel archaeological dig.

The formal legal document for the hire-purchase was drawn up by Pavey, Wilson & Cohen of 360 Collins Street, a long-established and respected firm of solicitors in Melbourne at the time, which later became Corrs Chambers Westgarth. The total value of the agreement is written by hand on the front page as £1330; subsequent amendments have been made as payments have incrementally reduced the amount owing. Applying a conservative inflation rate of 3.9 per cent over the 97 intervening years, this amounts to approximately $110,000 in today’s value.

At this time a formal apprenticeship relationship was required by the Dental Board of Victoria for registration, as a supplement to the developing educational curriculum provided by the Australian College of Dentistry (and later in conjunction with the University of Melbourne). In this case it appears that the hire-purchase of surgery items was integral to securing the future prospects of the apprentice in a family business. The premises at 11 Swanston Street were used as a dental surgery by the Turner family until 1954.

Associate Professor John Boucher AM

Joseph William Brownbill was born near the Victorian goldfields on 17 October 1880. His older brother George became a dental apprentice. Joe, who had left school early to work on the family farm, decided to join George in the profession. Joe educated himself to matriculation level and became a dental apprentice in Melbourne. The Brownbill Brothers set up a partnership in Maryborough and in 1908 opened a branch practice in Mildura. In 1911 the partnership was amicably dissolved. Joe moved permanently to Mildura, whilst George remained in Maryborough. Dentistry was in the family. As well as George and Joe, one brother became a dental mechanic, another a permitee (licensed to work under the supervision of a registered dentist) and another an illegal practitioner.

Extraction of all the teeth and provision of full dentures was the main dentistry of the day. Every six weeks, Joe would visit the Mallee settlements on the Murrayville line, extracting teeth one visit, taking impressions and bites the next visit, then posting out the completed dentures. In early years he travelled by horse and buggy, and later drove a T-model Ford. In about 1928, Joe built the surgery illustrated here, on the corner of 9th Street and Langtree Avenue, Mildura. Daddy, as he insisted on being called, was extremely proud of his design, which he said was ‘built to last a hundred years’, but he lived to see it demolished in the late 1950s.

I was a lad in primary school when a branch of the University of Melbourne was opened in Mildura in 1947, and I only became aware that some early-year dental students had come to Mildura when I started studying dentistry myself in 1955.

Joe was proud that his younger son studied dentistry. He lived long enough to congratulate me on extracting 54 teeth on my first morning in locals, but did not live long enough to see me graduate. Early into my career, I never thought I would do as much good for people as he had done; however, I am now sure that I have done more good with my concentration on teaching and preventive dentistry as my career.

Clinical Associate Professor John W Brownbill

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained … infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana, 1896

That the past informs the present and acts as a guide for the future is an accepted truism, and yet all too often we fail to adequately acknowledge our history. The links between the dental profession and dental education began with the formation of the Odontological Society of Victoria and remain strong to the present day. Progressive generations of dentists have worked to maintain high standards of professionalism, integrity, education and ethics in the dental profession, to ensure that Victorians receive the highest standard of dental care.

This exhibition take us on an exciting journey through the evolution of dentistry, and tell the story of many prominent dentists who helped to shape dental research and education in Victoria and build a strong professional association. There is a focus on the important role of public dental health and prevention, which acknowledges the high prevalence of dental disease that has been a constant refrain over the past 135 years. For example, the very real struggle to introduce water fluoridation in Victoria is an important lesson in the role of advocacy to benefit public health. Many dentists now take water fluoridation for granted, but there are important lessons here that we can continue to draw from in order to learn and be prepared for future challenges.

Dentistry: Innovation and education is a valuable work that highlights the strong and ongoing partnership between the Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch and the University of Melbourne Dental School.

Dr Gitika Sanghvi

President, Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch

The emergence of dental legislation is never straightforward. In 1882 the government of the colony of Victoria introduced a Dental Bill, which failed. The Member of the Legislative Assembly for North Melbourne, Dr JM Rose (a medical practitioner) introduced a private member’s bill for the registration of dentists in 1885 and again in 1886—both times unsuccessfully. Not one to be thwarted, Dr Rose introduced a modified bill in 1887, with success, and the Dental Board of Victoria commenced.

The first board consisted of eight members, appointed by the Governor-in-Council, which under the Act included at least four dentists and three legally qualified medical practitioners. Subsequent boards were elected by registrants, a practice which is not continued today.

This Act brought about the regulation of Victoria’s dentists for the first time. It required the Dental Board to examine dental students after four years of study, and to register suitably qualified dentists, dental students and overseas dentists. Any medical practitioner could practise dentistry; there was automatic registration for dentists from the United Kingdom (not much has changed today); other overseas-qualified dentists could be registered provided they had practised for 10 years and had a certificate of good standing; and grandfathering exemptions covered those persons already in practice in Victoria, apprentices and students. The Act specifically prevented the board from refusing registration because the applicant was not a British subject. Strangely, it further raised the prospect of the Governor-in-Council bringing an injunction against the board if it required a candidate for examination to follow a particular (unspecified) theory of dentistry. The practice of dentistry and the title of ‘dentist’ were protected to some degree, like today. Fraudulent misrepresentation in dealings with the board carried the risk of imprisonment for 12 months!

A registrar was appointed to maintain the register, with the power to collect fees to fund the board, conduct investigations and remove registrants from the register. Importantly, dentists could sue patients for unpaid fees, and were exempted from jury duty and military service.

Today’s public and dental profession can thank leaders such as John Iliffe for this Act, as it set the legal framework for the future of dentistry in Victoria.

Dr Gerard Condon AM

John William Springthorpe (1855–1933) graduated in arts and medicine at the University of Melbourne before training in neurology at the hospital on Queen’s Square in London and becoming a member of the Royal College of Physicians. He became a physician at the Melbourne Hospital and a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. He was also actively involved in medical politics in the Medical Society of Victoria and the British Medical Association Victorian Branch.

‘Springy’ was appointed to the Dental Board of Victoria in 1888. He strongly supported John Iliffe, the driving force behind negotiations by the Odontological Society of Victoria for meaningful training and regulation of the profession. He also supported Iliffe’s work in founding the Melbourne Dental Hospital in 1890, and was very influential in the subsequent development of the Australian College of Dentistry in 1897.

In 1904 discussions between the university and the Dental Board of Victoria recommended the establishment of a dental faculty at the University of Melbourne. This was approved, with the Australian College of Dentistry now becoming affiliated with the university. Springy was elected as the inaugural dean of the new Faculty of Dental Science.  
An obituary in The Argus newspaper summed up Springthorpe’s contribution in the following words:

<sub>It was largely due to the efforts of Dr. Springthorpe that the profession of dentistry was raised to a definite status in Victoria. Until about 1890 any man who could pull a tooth was able to obtain registration as a dentist.

As the leader from that date of a movement which resulted in the foundation of the Australian College of Dentistry in Melbourne, as president of the Dental Board for 13 years, and as dean of the faculty of dentistry at the University of Melbourne for 10 years, he was identified with every movement for the improvement of the status of dentists.1</sub>

The history of dentistry is mainly with dentists, but it helps to have friends.

Dr Allan Mawdsley OAM

‘_{Obituary. Dr. J. W. Springthorpe: Long record of service’, Argus, 24 April 1933, p. 8.}

Until the early 1880s, anybody could practise dentistry in Victoria, regardless of their training, skills or experience. In 1884 the Odontological Society of Victoria (later renamed the Australian Dental Association) lobbied strongly for the regulation of the profession, succeeding with the passage of the Dentists’ Act 1887. This established the Dental Board of Victoria, a register of practitioners, and the position of registrar, and also granted authority to conduct examinations to test fitness to practise. Persons who could prove that they had practised dentistry before the passing of the Act could be registered. The following year, unqualified persons were prevented from using the title ‘dentist’ or‘dental surgeon’, but it was still not an offence for them to practise. In 1909, registration became compulsory for a person to practise in Victoria.

The inaugural registrar was a Melbourne lawyer, Ernest Joske. He served for 51 years, during which time the profession matured, as did the Dental Board. He was succeeded by his son, Percy Joske, who held the position for the next 17 years. The interests of the public and the profession were well served by both father and son. In 1963 Percy Joske endowed the Faculty of Dental Science at the University of Melbourne with an award bearing his father’s name, which continues to be awarded to this day. Subsequent registrars were Miss Vera Sutton, Dr Ewan Deane, Dr Vincent Amerena, and Mr Peter Gardiner, each of whom served with distinction.

With the passing of the Dental Practice Act 1999, the Dental Board of Victoria was replaced by the Dental Practice Board of Victoria, which provided for the registration of dentists, dental specialists, dental prosthesists, dental therapists and dental hygienists. In 2010 its role was assumed by the new Dental Board of Australia, making registration to practise dentistry the responsibility of a national body.

Thus the Dental Board of Victoria functioned continuously from 1887 to 1999, with only six registrars over that time, but with a very large number of dentists serving as board members. It has a fine record of service in the interests of the people of Victoria and in the regulation of dental services.

Dr Ross King AM

After the passing of Victoria’s first Dentists’ Act in 1887, there was an urgent need for premises where dental students could gain practical experience, on patients who received free treatment in return. Donations from many dentists and well-wishers permitted the renting of a first-floor room at 225 Lonsdale Street, opposite the Melbourne Hospital. It opened as the Melbourne Dental Hospital in September 1890. Furnishings were spartan, treatment was limited to examinations and extractions, and staff was a volunteer dentist. It operated for two hours each morning, six days a week. Funds were few, paying students were fewer, and an economic depression hit Victoria soon after the opening.

In straitened circumstances, the hospital decamped in September 1892 to cheaper rooms at 239 Lonsdale Street (pictured here). The first location had been above a horse-and-carriage bazaar; the new venue was below an undertaker firm. Today, neither seems appropriate—for hygiene or status—but the undertaker was probably kept busy by the Melbourne Hospital across the road. In 1894 the Dental Hospital had to be financially rescued by the Dental Association of Victoria, which took over its management. As John Iliffe was president of both the DAV and the former hospital committee of management, little changed in practice. The DAV was a broader front to garner support, but the volunteer staff dentists were drawn from the Odontological Society of Victoria, another Iliffe-dominated group, to imbue students with a non-advertising ethos. A final Lonsdale Street move to relatively salubrious rooms at 189–191 happened in 1897, this time to a former clothing factory above a second-hand clothes store. The move was in preparation for a government-approved education curriculum, which would attract more students. A new body, the Australian College of Dentistry, with an American dean, Alfred Merrill, was formed to co-exist with and jointly run the hospital. Staff, comprising a superintendent, cleaner and office boy, were employed initially and three surgeries were designated but barely furnished. An inquiry into the college’s running in 1900 revealed unsanitary conditions and poor practices. These prompted operational improvements, but little capacity for restorative dentistry until a move to custom-built facilities in Spring Street in 1907.

Clinical Associate Professor James Robertson AM

At the University of Melbourne in 1962, clinical and general teaching opinions were that it would be most convenient if entry into the new dental building could be arranged for early in the following year, during the holiday period of low patient attendance and before commencement of clinical teaching.1 Firm dates were given for occupancy over the weekend of 2 and 3 March 1963. Treatment was to commence in virtually all departments on Monday 4 March 1963. The official opening of the new building was arranged as a joint ceremony with the university, to take place on 23 May 1963. The first meeting of the committee occurred in the board room at the new address, corner of Elizabeth Street, Grattan Street and Flemington Road, on 26 March 1963. Inview of the importance of the occasion, the opening remarks of the president, Mr WH Anderson, are recorded in full:

This first meeting of the Committee of Management in the new building presents the occasion to pause a moment before conducting normal business. Our first thoughts must be directed towards those pioneers who from the early days of over half a century devoted their vision and energy to institute a dental hospital in Melbourne. To them is due the first building in which a hospital was conducted; then the building which we have vacated after so many years; now this magnificent new building in which we meet today.

Like Moses, who led the Children of Israel for 40 years in the wilderness, it was not granted to many of those pioneers to enter the promised land, this great hospital. There are a few still with us, such as Dr Tuckfield to whom we owe so much.

But we enter into the heritage and with it we enter into a great responsibility to enlarge the future, to think big, to act well and wisely.

It is incumbent upon us to work as a team for the advancement of dental science, for the status and integrity of the dental profession, and the ease and well-being of the patients committed to our charge.

Professor Emeritus Henry Forman Atkinson MBE (1912–2016)

1. This text is an edited version of an extract from HF Atkinson, In defence of ivory towers: The history of the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne, Melbourne: Privately published, 1990, pp. 86–7.

Seated front row, left, is Oscar Behrend (1889–1958), who graduated from the Australian College of Dentistry in 1909 at the age of 20, winning the prize for practical dental surgery. By regulation, he had to wait until his 21st birthday before being licensed to practise. When the College of Dentistry affiliated with the University of Melbourne, he obtained his Bachelor of Dental Science. In 1920 he earned a Doctor of Dental Science.

During World War I Oscar served as a captain in the AIF Dental Corps, working first in camps and hospitals in Victoria, and later in England, France and Belgium. On his return from the war, he practised at 12 Collins Street until he retired. His appointments included honorary clinical demonstrator the Australian College of Dentistry, 1909–30

Dr Donald A Behrend

On 27 April 1927 the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) visited the University of Melbourne, the duke receiving an honorary Doctorate of Laws. The official ceremony in Wilson Hall was preceded by a mock ceremony, for which students donned costumes in caricature of the royal party and academics. Afterwards, the president of the Students’ Representative Council invited the duke to an informal reception.1 He graciously accepted and was promptly whisked into a carriage for a procession through the grounds. A dental student made an address, in which he ‘referred modestly to the fact that its students were all of good extraction—indeed, were the crowning glory of the Duke’s subjects’.2 The duke was then bundled into a clubhouse, where he recited an oath:

I, Albert Windsor, of London, having been graciously admitted to this most august body of students, hereby make this solemn oath and declaration: That I will always conduct myself in a manner, humble and lowly, as befits a student, inasmuch as I will be prepared, at all times, to supply beer and cigarettes when called upon to do so for my less fortunate comrades. I also pledge myself to support this society to my full endeavour.3

The duke left the grounds to roaring cheers.4 Planning and execution of the ‘kidnapping’ have been attributed largely to the dental students. In the Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum is this copy of a letter from the duke’s private secretary, dated 4 May 1927, politely declining the Dental Students’ Society’s offer to make the duke an honorary life member, accompanied by a photograph for display in their common room. The letter concludes with an assurance of the duke’s ‘very happy recollections of his visit to the University’.

Susannah Britt

1. ‘The duke at university’, The Age, 28 April 1927, p. 9; HF Atkinson, ‘A royal portrait’, University of Melbourne Collections, issue 6 (June 2010), p. 35;
2. 2  ‘Royal visit: Duke’s strenuous day’, Argus, 28 April 1927, p. 15.
3. Ibid.
4. ‘The king is a dental student’, Mouth Mirror, 1948, pp. 37–8; ‘Humorous ’varsity rag’, Saturday Journal (Adelaide), 7 May 1927, p.5.

Students washing Luna Park’s teeth as part of Dental Health Week in 1969, including Vern Kimpton (top, poster and brush in hand), Peter Delahey and Rob Polloch (far right). Far left in front are Scott Jenkins and Ted Crawford.

Ethel Florence Annie Godfrey (1871–1956) was one of Victoria’s first women dentists. Born in Melbourne, she attended Presbyterian Ladies’ College, showing promise as a student from an early age. Ethel was the first girl to win the exhibition in matriculation, in October 1888, having attained first-class honours in English and history. Between 1895 and 1898 she was one of only four female students at Mr E Lenthal Oldfield’s Dental College and Oral Hospital, a rival of the Melbourne Dental Hospital. (At this time the University of Melbourne was not yet involved in teaching dentistry.) Ethel and her three female colleagues from Oldfield’s passed the Dental Board examination in November 1898 and were registered as dentists on 8 February 1899. During Ethel’s time, women studying at the tertiary level were generally frowned upon, but she persevered and completed her course.

Ethel, along with her business partner (and later sister-in-law), Alys Berry, practised dentistry at 34 Collins Street in Melbourne until she married. For two women to have a business together and operate it alone was unusual, if not unheard of. They were entrepreneurs of their time, working under vastly different constraints, expectations and norms from their equivalents today. This was at a time when women in Victoria could not vote or own property, and equality of pay was not even considered.

In 1899 Ethel became the first female dentist employed at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, which was established by women, for women. She was a member of the Lyceum Club and in 1903 married the prominent Melbourne surgeon and art collector Dr Samuel Arthur Ewing, with whom she had three children.

Ethel Godfrey’s determination to succeed is an example of strength, character and resilience, from which we can continue to learn today. The current student body in Victoria leans very much towards more women studying dentistry, which is also beginning to show in the emerging workforce. We have women like Ethel to thank for their enduring legacy.

Ethel Godfrey died in 1956, but her story lives on to inspire many young women, today and in the future.

Dr Gitika Sanghvi

Dr Martha Burns (1873–1959) was a remarkable pioneer in Australia’s early dental profession. Born in Brisbane of Scottish parents, she began training as a nurse in Brisbane in 1896 and worked in dentistry, after which she sought to obtain a dental qualification in 1907—the first woman in Brisbane to do so. She entered the Australian College of Dentistry (affiliated with the University of Melbourne) after rejection on gender grounds by the Queensland Dental Board and the University of Sydney. She eventually started private practice in Brisbane, and volunteered at the Alexandra Home for Children.

In 1914 Dr Burns set out for the International Dental Congress in London. While she was there, war broke out, and her life took a different direction. She didn’t hesitate to volunteer for military service, but the process was tricky: when she went to enlist, Burns found herself explaining her intent on five occasions, from the kerbside to the lobby! But resilience prevailed, uniforms were obtained, and she was in. Her main role was to receive the wounded and return them to health in a makeshift hospital in Wimeraux, France, and later on the Asturias, a ship based at Saint Nazaire. The 100-staff field hospital often cared for more than 500 patients at a time, serenaded by the sounds of gunfire. Here Dr Burns discovered the benefits of the anaesthetic chloroform, especially when dealing with fractured jaws and shrapnel wounds, tasks that went far beyond her training.

Unfortunately, this exciting and unrelentingly busy posting was cut short (to just three months) by ailing health. Burns was medically discharged and returned to Brisbane, becoming the first Queensland woman to return from the front. She advocated for the Red Cross, later receiving its Long-Service, Jubilee and Coronation medals.

Her dental advocacy included work on the role of mastication, suggesting that dental decay in children was avoidable. She published in The Australian Dental Journal, describing the role of dentistry in wartime, which contributed to the formation of the Australian Army Dental Corps. She was instrumental in organisations including the Brisbane Women’s Club, Women’s Emergency Corps, Queensland Blinded Soldiers’ Association, Brisbane Lyceum Club, and Red Cross Reserve Voluntary Detachment, to name but a few.

Honorary Associate Professor Gelsomina L Borromeo

Eve Susan Weiss was born in Vienna in 1926, where she had a happy, comfortable childhood. But in February 1939, Eve, her parents and older sister were forced to flee the Nazi occupation of Austria, arriving by ship in Melbourne seven months later.

After the family had settled in the suburb of Kew, Eve was accepted at Ruyton Girls’ School, with a benevolent offer of waiving her tuition fees. Her parents were told: ‘Pay as much as you can afford’. When Eve received her first pay packet as a dentist, she donated it to Ruyton—a measure of her gratitude and a sign of the generosity that would continue throughout her life.

Eve studied hard, excelled at school and went on to study dentistry at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1948. The John Iliffe Prize was awarded annually to the top student in each year; Eve was the joint recipient at the end of her fourth year. She was remarkable in achieving so much, having arrived in Australia as a young refugee with little English. She was immensely grateful to her family for the sacrifices they made in supporting her through to university graduation.

While studying, Eve met a newly arrived refugee from Latvia, Jascha (John) Landman, and they married in 1952. She practised as a dentist in the early years of their marriage and until their third child was born. In her fifties, she went back to working part-time with an orthodontist, Dr Charles Renton (‘Ren’) Newbury. She was always pleased when former patients recognised her and thanked her for their perfect smiles—especially the young women whose teeth she had straightened just in time for their wedding photos.

Eve was intelligent, cultured, generous, loyal and loving—and she engendered great loyalty and friendship from everyone who knew her.

After Eve’s death at the age of 90, her meticulous lecture notes were discovered; these were donated, along with other items, to the Medical History Museum and Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum. The Eve Landman Scholarship has been established in the Melbourne Dental School in her honour.

Professor Kerry Landman, Ms Sally Landman and Dr Michael Landman

Professor Emeritus Louise Brearley Messer AM, BDSc, LDS, MDSc, PhD, GradDipDiv, FICD, FRACDS has had a long and important association with dentistry in Victoria and the Melbourne Dental School. Louise undertook both her LDS and BDSc at the University of Melbourne, completing her studies in 1962. She was among the last class to graduate from the former Melbourne Dental Hospital at 193 Spring Street, and went on to work for the university, joining the conservative dentistry staff.

Louise moved to the United States of America in 1968 to work at the University of Minnesota, where she completed her PhD in nutritional biochemistry in 1988. She held senior academic roles at both Minnesota and the University of British Columbia. During her time at Minnesota she was director of the Post-Doctoral Research Training Program in Dental Caries for the National Institutes of Health.

Returning to Melbourne, she was Elsdon Storey Chair of child dental health from 1990 until 2008, becoming the school’s first female professor, and the director of graduate studies 1996–2008. During these years she also provided expert advice to Victoria’s School Dental Program and chaired the Curriculum Advisory Committee for the Dental Therapy School.

Her illustrious career spans many fields of research. She has published more than 200 papers and supervised the research of more than 80 postgraduate students. She has lectured extensively across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions, served on the editorial boards of prestigious journals including Dental Traumatology and Pediatric Dentistry, and is a regular reviewer for many others. Between 2006 and 2015 she had the highest number of citations of published papers, and in 2019 was one of only two people to have four papers listed in the 100 most-cited papers in paediatric dentistry journals.

Professor Louise Brearley Messer’s research into paediatric dentistry has investigated dental growth and development; developmental anomalies; tooth caries, erosion and wear in children; long-term effects of fluoride; and molar incisor hypomineralisation. For her contribution to paediatric dentistry she was awarded the Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch Award for Distinguished Service in 2011, and the following year became a Member of the Order of Australia.

Professor Julie Satur

Methods of constructing complete dentures have changed over the decades, but perhaps not as rapidly as other aspects of the management of oral health. Most dental practitioners gradually learned and perfected the art of making dentures over a long career.

This photograph depicts the manufacture of dentures from vulcanite (rubber hardened by a chemical process involving sulphur or other materials, invented by Charles Goodyear of tyre fame). First made in about 1860, vulcanite dentures led to a major reduction in costs for patients. Their disadvantage was the colour of the gums, being dark red rather than pink. But the fit of this new material provided a much better replacement for patients without teeth. In the late 1930s the acrylic denture was introduced. This material is still used today, some eight decades since its introduction.

In the last 30 or 40 years more people are retaining most of their natural teeth. Hence, the emphasis on complete dentures in dental education has also gradually reduced as other forms of treatment and disease management have taken on a more significant role. Nevertheless, there remain populations throughout the world who have a need for full dentures.

More recently, the advent of digital technologies and computer-aided manufacturing is bringing the next revolution in the manufacture of complete dentures. Digital imaging is developing rapidly, enabling dentists to take images of the mouths of patients who do not have teeth, as are technologies that can mimic how the upper and lower jaws are positioned together. Also, technologies are developing that can either make a denture from a solid block of acrylic by 3D-milling, or alternatively 3D-printing is becoming available. As these developments advance it is likely that a new denture might be able to be made in only a few days, or possibly even hours, rather than the six or so weeks previously needed. Such improvements will make cost and time savings for denture construction. The next era of denture manufacture is here, and is exciting for both the dentist and the patient.

Professor Michael F Burrow

Although the concept of not using a dental chair may seem strange to present-day dentists (and patients), that was indeed the case up to the 18th century. In the 10th century, Albucasis, a leading surgeon from Cordoba, compiled Al-Tasrif, a 30-volume medical encyclopedia, which included his newly designed dental instruments, and instructions for carrying out dental procedures with the patient lying down, resting their head in the dentist’s lap.1 Although depictions of dental charlatans from the 15th to the 17th centuries show hapless patients sitting in a variety of environments with the ‘dentist’ behind them, not until seven centuries after Albucasis did Pierre Fauchard, in Le chirurgien dentiste (1728), recommend that patients sit on a chair, or even on a chaise longue, rather than lying on the floor, the dentist approaching them from behind. The chair was essentially for the benefit of the patient, not the practitioner; early dentists worked standing up.

Early dental chairs were wooden, sometimes with a hand-cranked mechanism. They were replaced by metal ones, with lion-paw feet or a circular pedestal, ornately decorated in black paint with gold relief, a padded head-rest to match the plush red velvet seat for the patient, and a foot-rest—for easy access and for the patient to push against when required. The spittoon and bracket-table may have been attached to the chair, or free-standing, as seen in Mr McIntosh’s surgery of Colac.

The individual chair and its accoutrements were replaced by the ‘pump-up’ hydraulic chair, with a more serviceable black seat and rubber head-rest (to support the occiput), accompanied by a tall, free-standing unit from which a bracket-table (complete with chip syringes and cotton-wool dispenser), lights, spittoon and belt-driven drill—even a fan—emanated like tentacles. This in turn was replaced by space-age looks and technology: smooth lines, triplexes with high-speed evacuation, high- and low-speed drills appearing from nowhere, ultrasonic cleaners, intra-oral cameras, curing lights, and X-ray machines, with or without a spittoon—depending on your taste.

Dr Jeremy Graham

1. A Haloubi and A Kassab, ‘The achievements of Albucasis in the field of oral surgery’, Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, vols 6–7 (2007–08), pp. 12–15.

The modern dental catalogue is an explosion of colour and excitement. It tries to lure dentists, through offers of discounts and claims of scientific superiority, to purchase the latest technology in order to simplify their clinical procedures, make them appear more modern than their competitors, or perhaps even to improve the oral health of their patients. Two items show how much things have changed over the past 150 years.

Plaque control is the cornerstone of prevention in dentistry, with plaque bacteria responsible for dental caries (decay) and periodontal (gum) disease—two of the most prevalent diseases affecting Australians. Encouraging people to brush their teeth regularly continues to play a major role in dental practice. Toothbrushes have evolved from chew-sticks with frayed ends to remove plaque and food debris from around the teeth and gums, to bristle brushes using animal hair in a wood or bone handle, which began to be mass produced by William Addis in England in 1780. The Maw & Son catalogue of 1869 shows a range of toothbrush-head designs and handle options, suggesting that, even then, manufacturers were attempting to segment the market with a specific brush-head and handle to suit different customers. Toothbrush design and marketing have come a long way since, with a move to synthetic bristles, plastic handles and then electric toothbrushes, with each modification designed to remove plaque more efficiently and improve oral health.

The Ritter chair parts catalogue of 1923 demonstrates a functional approach to the dental chair, in stark contrast to the emphasis on patient comfort that epitomises the modern equivalent. Much of today’s marketing of dental chairs focuses on style and colour—aspects absent from the 1923 catalogue. There is also the implication that the 1920s dentist had a central role to play in maintaining their dental chair, being able to order various parts to repair and update it as required. Given the complexity of the modern dental chair, this would be unthinkable today

Associate Professor Matthew Hopcraft

Dentistry and dentists played an important role in the evolution of anaesthesia. Of all surgical procedures in the early 19th century, tooth extraction was by far the most common, and a regular reminder that surgery and pain were inseparable partners.

Although reports of pain relief in surgery appear in early European, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese literature, the herbal concoctions that were used remain obscure to us today, and were likely only partially effective. Operative surgery was a rare event. By the 1840s, three ingredients for successful mitigation of surgical pain had been available for some time: ether had been known since the 16th century; nitrous oxide had been described by Joseph Priestley in 1773; and chloroform was prepared independently by three different scientists in the 1830s. All had been observed to cause unconsciousness, but no-one saw the possibilities.

The first recorded clinical use of ether anaesthesia took place in Rochester, New York, when medical student William Clarke administered ether to ‘Miss Hobbie’, the sister of a fellow student, while the dentist Elijah Pope extracted her painful tooth. The anaesthetic’s effects were dismissed by Clarke’s preceptor, Professor Moore, as likely to be merely a hysterical reaction in a young lady, and Clarke did not repeat the event.

In 1844 another dentist, Horace Wells of Hartford in Connecticut, decided to experiment with nitrous oxide, or ‘laughing gas’, after observing its use by Gardner Colton, a travelling medical student–showman, for amusing the townsfolk. Having noticed a volunteer fail to respond to a painful gash while under the influence of the gas, Wells had his own tooth painlessly removed by a colleague after inhaling some. He continued to use nitrous oxide successfully in his practice and soon sought an opportunity to demonstrate its efficacy to the surgeons of Boston. His demonstration failed, as the medical student who submitted himself for the experiment cried out during the extraction, despite later acknowledging that he had felt no pain. Two years passed before another dentist, Wells’ former pupil William Morton, took the advice of a Boston chemist and experimented with ether on his students. On 30 September 1846, Eben Frost appeared at Morton’s door with excruciating toothache, pleading: ‘Can’t you mesmerise me?’ Morton replied, ‘I have something better’, and proceeded to apply ether on a handkerchief, before removing the tooth, while Frost ‘made neither sign nor sound but remained immobile’. The success led to another request to the surgeons at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital for an opportunity to demonstrate painless surgery. Gilbert Abbott submitted to the removal of a tumour under the jaw by chief surgeon John Warren, with Morton administering the ether. The success of that demonstration, on 16 October 1846, led to news of anaesthesia spreading around the globe.

The news and subsequent adoption of anaesthesia spread most prolifically after a letter from Jacob Bigelow to his surgical colleague and friend Francis Boott in London arrived on 16 December: ‘I send you an account of a new anodyne process lately introduced here, which promises to be one of the important discoveries of the present age. It has rendered many patients insensible to pain’. Boott wasted no time and, together with London dentist James Robinson, performed a tooth extraction under ether on 19 December. Two days later, the renowned surgeon Robert Liston performed a painless amputation using ether.

When news of ether anaesthesia arrived in Australia, it came from England, firstly in a short article in Bell’s Messenger, and then in more detail in the 9 January 1847 issue of The Illustrated London News. The journey of some 100 days meant that the latter report arrived in late May. The first use of ether in Australia took place on 7 June 1847, in both Sydney and Launceston. In Sydney dentist John Belisario and in Launceston surgeon James Pugh—both copying the apparatus shown in The Illustrated London News—successfully administered ether anaesthesia.

Dr Rod Westhorpe OAM

Dental care, like medical care, has evolved over time. It is fair to say that, until the turn of the 20th century, the predominating form of treatment of dental disease (the most common being dental decay) was the removal (extraction) of teeth. In fact, with the advent of local anaesthesia (together with improved materials to make dentures), tooth removal, while certainly destructive, was an easy way to enable people to eat and chew food and also present an acceptable smile, without unattractive cavities in their front teeth. This approach to care became very popular, and there are stories from the early 20th century of young women about to marry having all their teeth removed, to be replaced by dentures paid for by their parents, to avoid the new husband having to devote precious funds to expensive dental care. Similarly, full dentures (preceded by removal of all teeth) became a popular 21st-birthday gift.

During World War I, the armed forces recognised that replacing the teeth with full dentures was the most efficient way to render fighting men ‘dentally fit’. Fortunately, with better understanding of disease processes and the rapid development of dental materials, repairing the effects of dental decay became the treatment of choice, followed by prevention of disease initiation.

For almost 100 years the ‘repair’ (restoration) of teeth affected by dental decay (caries) was dominated by the teachings of Dr GV Black (1835–1915), as embodied in his 1908 text A work on operative dentistry in two volumes. The dentist would remove the decay and place a restoration (‘filling’) of dental amalgam, which was the main material used at the time, and is still in use today.

Professor Mike Morgan, Professor Martin J Tyas AM and Dr Margaret A Stacey

In the close confines of a ship at sea, certain positions have their own sobriquets, including the Dental Officer: ‘Fang-Bosun’, ‘Toothy’, sometimes just ‘Dentist’. But these nicknames are always used with a certain respect—even a tinge of affection. Australian Dental Officers (DO) have been in uniform since 1918, conspicuous by the burnt-orange colouring between their gold rings.

Since its formation in 1911, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) recognised the importance of dental health in its serving members, and it paid civilian dentists to treat them, either in their own practices or in shore establishments in Victoria and New South Wales. In the early years of World War I, Australian sailors were treated by Royal Navy sources when available. But in December 1917, with enlistments increasing, the position of Surgeon Dentist was advertised for service afloat in the RAN, at a salary of £365 per annum. Honorary Lieutenant Milton Atwill (1888–1965), a Dental Officer in the Australian Army Medical Corps, was selected from the 26 applications received. He was appointed on 8 April 1918, posted to Garden Island in Sydney and then to HMAS Cerberus to await passage to the UK, joining Australia (I) in July. Although his tenure was short, ‘paying off’ in September 1919, Atwill’s foresight in suggesting that the RAN create a structured Dental Branch, with the DOs supported by Dental Assistants and Dental Mechanics, was prescient.

The number of DOs steadily increased in the inter-war years, eventually having enough to warrant a Surgeon Commander (Dental) in charge of the Dental Branch, much as it is in 2020. With the onset and progress of World War II, the Dental Branch grew. In general the RAN’s larger ships, such as cruisers, carried DOs, while forward bases and the smaller fleet units, such as destroyers and frigates, were served by travelling DOs

They serve afloat and ashore, still in the manner described in the editorial of The Commonwealth Dental Review of May 1918: ‘taken on the whole then the position of Dentist in the Royal Australian Navy is a dignified one and one which the profession as a whole will be pleased to know has been established’.

Dr Jeremy Graham

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Military aviation in Australia started at Point Cook in Victoria in 1912 with the establishment of the Central Flying School (CFS). Australia was the first British dominion to develop an aviation corps after this had been recommended by the Imperial Conference in London in 1911. By 1914 it was known as the Australian Flying Corps (AFC). As with the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in Britain, the AFC was a part of the Army, and dental care for its members was provided initially by the Australian Army Dental Service.1

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was formed in 1921. Six years later a dental clinic was established at the CFS at RAAF Base Point Cook, and a Dental Officer with the rank of Flying Officer was appointed. He was also responsible for treating personnel at the RAAF Base Laverton and at Air Force Headquarters at Victoria Barracks in Melbourne. In 1937 there were only three uniformed RAAF Dental Officers, but with the rapid growth of the RAAF in World War II this number increased from five in 1939 to 227 in 1945, with concomitant increases in Dental Orderlies (assistants) and Dental Mechanics (technicians).

The wartime structure of the RAAF Dental Branch was the result of the energy and intellect of one man: Norman Henry Andrews LDS(Vic), BDSc(Melb), DDSc(Melb). Initially the RAAF Dental Branch was administered by the Director of Medical Services (Air), a position under the control of Army medical staff. In April 1940 the RAAF Medical Service separated from the Army. Andrews, the second uniformed RAAF Dental Officer, had enlisted in 1933 and in 1943 became the RAAF’s first Director of Dental Services. He established new dental centres at major bases, created mobile and transportable dental units, and encouraged the professional development of all personnel by starting a journal and arranging lectures by visiting experts. The aim was to make personnel dentally fit in base areas and to keep them fit in forward areas. This required RAAF dental units to be deployed to northern Australia, New Guinea, the United Kingdom, the Middle East and Africa…Dental Officers have continued to serve in Australia and overseas, as members of the Permanent Air Force and of the Specialist Reserve, until the present day.

Air Commodore Rowan D Story AM, RFD 

_{1  Sources for this essay include History of the RAAF Dental Branch, www.defence.gov.au/health/about/docs/RAAFDental.pdf}

_{(viewed 26 November 2019).}

_{2  AS Walker, Clinical problems of war, Australia in the War of 1939–1945; Series 5: Medical, vol. 1, Canberra: Australian War}

_{Memorial, 1952, pp. 554–66; 617–18.}

_{3  TH Clouston and FA Walker, ‘The Clouston-Walker splint for pin fixation’, British Dental Journal, vol. 74 (1943), pp. 147–52.}

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Kenneth Russell (1885–1945) was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He began his dental training at the age of 16, as apprentice to Mr Arthur H Bell, dentist, of Collins Street in Melbourne. In 1916 he joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and embarked as a Captain on HMAT Themistocles. Russell’s appointment as a Captain represented an important stage in the development of the dental profession in Australia—an acceptance that the level of knowledge, skill and training achieved by Dental Officers was equivalent to that of Medical Officers. Previously, the public and the medical profession recognised only the strictly technical elements of dentistry, remaining largely ignorant of its scientific and artistic aspects.1

Captain Russell served as a Dental Officer, firstly in Egypt and then in France. In December 1917 he was attached to the Queen’s Hospital in Sidcup, England. He was promoted to the rank of Major and was, apart from caring for patients with jaw and facial injuries, responsible for training Dental Officers in the special methods of treatment used at that time. In 1919 he described his work at Sidcup:

The work consists of treating fractured jaws (splinting etc) and making special appliances for facial operations, making a collection of splints and prosthetic appliances for the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. This has now been completed. In addition dental officers have been attached for a course of instruction for varying periods. Capt’s Watson (Sydney), Findlay (Melbourne) and Taunton (Adelaide) are the officers. The mechanics, who at first numbered two are now, at date, 7. I think that 6 capable mechanics are required for a unit treating 100 beds as we have been with two dental officers.2

The Dental Mechanics of the Australian Army Dental Service demonstrated a very high level of technical skill in constructing these appliances, often under the most difficult physical circumstances.

After the war Russell returned to his practice in Collins Street. In 1921 the University of Melbourne awarded him the degree of Doctor of Dental Science for a thesis based on his work during the Great War, titled ‘Restoration of the superior maxilla by means of prosthetic appliances’.

Air Commodore Rowan D Story AM, RFD

_{1  AG Butler, letter to K Russell, 21 April 1945. Newland and Russell, P 29, 41 454, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
2  K Russell, letter to Staff Officer Army Dental Service, AIF Headquarters, London, 26 February 1919. 41 454, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.}

In February 1942 some Australian servicemen on the island of Ambon, Indonesia, were captured by the Japanese and held there and on Hainan island until cessation of hostilities. After the death of the only Australian medical practitioner, Captain PM Davidson, on 15 February 1943, responsibility for the Australian prisoners’ medical care fell to a dentist, Captain Gordon Carlyle Marshall (1913–1985), and a doctor of the Royal East Indies Medical Services, Captain JHQ Ehlhart.1

Conditions on Ambon were very difficult: the hospital hut was a primitive structure measuring just 60 by 30 metres; medical instruments and medicines were in short supply; and prisoners suffered from diseases such as beri-beri, dengue fever, enteritis, tuberculosis, dysentery and stomatitis. Marshall
and Ehlhart would request supplies from the Japanese but were often refused or told they were not available. So, through necessity they improvised. As Joan Beaumont explains:

Marshall experimented with making yeast a source of vitamin B … He also made sunglasses for the worst victims of conjunctivitis, from celluloid cut from anti-gas goggles … Some of Marshall’s most ingenious creations were, not surprisingly, in the area of dentistry. A dentist’s engine was made from an old bicycle wheel connected to a drill attachment by a series of wires and small wheels. Some dentures were fashioned from aluminium. They performed well but they had the habit of giving the wearers a shock when something hot was drunk.2

Held in the collection are some sand-cast aluminium dentures, made of metal salvaged from army water bottles and scrap from planes. These demonstrate Marshall’s ingenuity and skill, and the resourcefulness characteristic of many in the profession during wartime. As the late Professor Emeritus Henry Forman Atkinson commented: ‘Captain Marshall as a dental student would have had some contact with the casting of metal at the Australian College of Dentistry, but to achieve this result in the appalling conditions of a disease ridden prisoner of war camp … is almost beyond belief.’3

Dr Jacqueline Healy

These are the skulls of Martha Needle and Frances Lydia ‘Minnie’ Knorr, both executed by hanging in 1894. Needle was sentenced to death for the murder of her husband, children and future brother-in-law by poisoning. She was executed at the Melbourne Gaol, aged 30 years. Knorr, a ‘baby farmer’, was sentenced to death for the murder of three infants in her care, and executed at Pentridge Gaol. She was 27 years old. Both women led tragic lives and endured circumstances that undoubtedly contributed to their criminal behaviour.

The skulls were originally housed and presumably on display at the Old Melbourne Gaol, before custodianship was granted through the National Trust to the Melbourne Dental School in 2006.

Both skulls are covered with cream-coloured, lead-based paint. Despite this covering, if you look closely the skulls reveal aspects of these women’s lives. Both have spaces where teeth were lost or extracted during life. In the spaces where hollow sockets remain, no bone remodelling has occurred, so these teeth were most likely lost post-mortem.

In Frances Knorr’s skull, only two mandibular canine teeth remain. The incisors and premolars were presumably lost post-mortem, but sockets for the mandibular molars have remodelled, indicating they were lost during life. The story is similar in her upper jaw: some teeth lost during life, some after death.

Martha Needle also lost teeth before and after death. Her skull retains some molars in the lower and upper jaws, but she lost all premolars in her upper jaw during her lifetime. There are some moderately sized calculus deposits on the mandibular tooth surfaces facing the oral cavity.

Neither of these women would have been asked permission before execution for her remains to be held and displayed. Attitudes to the collection, retention and appropriate use of human remains have changed significantly in the meantime. Today, we learn from these examples by studying physical features of the skull and teeth. If we are to be responsible and ethical custodians, we should use these specimens to learn about the women’s lives and circumstances in order to benefit people today and in the future.

Dr Rita Hardiman

The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), or Tasmanian tiger, was a carnivorous marsupial. Once commonly found in mainland Australia and New Guinea, it is now extinct. The most likely last living thylacines were held at Hobart Zoo—all were dead by 1936. Footage of this last group of thylacines shows them pacing and lounging in their enclosure, and displaying their impressively large mouth-gape.

The thylacine is an excellent example of convergent (or parallel) evolution: the process by which two or more unrelated species evolve the same or similar physical features.

A thylacine’s skull closely resembles those of carnivores such as dogs, foxes and wolves, but it is a close relative to none of these, the thylacine being a marsupial, while the others mentioned are placental carnivores. A distinctive feature of thylacines is the dentition: four incisors, one canine, three premolars and four molars on each side, as opposed to the relative three, one, four and three in foxes and wolves.

Collected samples of thylacines exist in many countries, in the form of preserved pups and skeletal material, for example. The International Thylacine Specimen Database has been published as a record of all thylacine specimens held in museum and university collections.1

When a person dies unexpectedly, or in unusual or violent circumstances, in Australia it is generally the responsibility of forensic pathologists to establish the cause and mechanism of death. Sometimes the deceased person’s identity is not known, in which case identification can usually be resolved by comparing some form of ante-mortem record with post-mortem findings at autopsy. This can be done in various ways, such as fingerprint comparison.1

However, not all human remains are suitable for such comparisons. This may be because of post-mortem alteration of the body by putrefaction, burning or traumatic physical injury. In such circumstances the skeletal remains provide the most robust source of information. In life the teeth, being the only parts of the skeleton naturally exposed and visible, are more likely to have been documented in some way. Photographs of the living person may show them smiling, revealing the number, shape and arrangement of the front teeth, which may be sufficient to establish identity. The person’s treating dentist can furnish X-ray images of the teeth and jaws. These also provide information about past treatments, such as placement of fillings and other restorations.

Fortunately, the teeth (and materials used by dentists to repair or replace them) are usually very resistant to breakdown. Teeth’s mineral component does not melt below l600 °C—higher than the melting point of most metals. Further, as dental tissues are progressively subjected to increasing heat, the sub-microscopic apatite crystals, which provide teeth with their hardness in life, fuse by sintering, so that even after the complete combustion of any binding organic components of the teeth has occurred, their morphology and component tissues remain, albeit in a shrunken and friable state. Dentures or false teeth are made of metal or acrylic, both extremely resistant to chemical destruction. Although acrylic is vulnerable to burning, such dentures, protected at the expense of the oro-facial tissues enveloping them, frequently survive a fatal conflagration.

Once a putative identity has been established, and because almost everyone in Australia has had a dental examination at some stage of their life, excellent records often exist for comparison with these most persistent and stable parts of the remains.

Professor John G Clement (1948–2018)

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Professor Emeritus Charles Harold Down DDSc, FRSRCS, FACD (1893–1965), known to generations of the profession as ‘Fluff’, was the first lecturer in conservative dental surgery at the Australian College of Dentistry, retiring in 1958. He was educated at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1912 from the recently established BDSc. After graduation, he volunteered with the AIF and was appointed a captain in the Dental Department of the Medical Corps, embarking on 1 July 1918 to Europe.

Down entered private practice after returning from service overseas. His career in dental education began in the early 1920s, when he was appointed as a demonstrator to the University of Melbourne. Subsequently he became lecturer in operative technique, then senior lecturer in charge of conservative dentistry at the College of Dentistry in 1934, and in 1949 when he was appointed foundation professor of conservative dentistry and associate dean of the Dental Faculty. He continued to work after retirement in 1958, being listed as an honorary consultant dental surgeon at the Dental Hospital of Melbourne in the 1960 Calendar of the University of Melbourne.

Professor Down was an innovative and dedicated educator. He developed a technique for the production of large-scale teaching models with which he demonstrated the

GV Black system of cavity classification (see page 48). Some of these models were displayed in the Spring Street building that housed the Australian College of Dentistry from 1907 to 1963. He also produced large chalk-pastel drawings in black, white and green, depicting the human teeth (pictured here and on page 23), used as part of his work as a part-time senior lecturer in the Department of Conservative Dental Surgery of the Australian College of Dentistry in the early 1930s. These drawings were included in his thesis, ‘The teaching of operative technique and tooth morphology by visual methods’. The thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Dental Science, University of Melbourne, Department of Conservative Dental Surgery, on 12 March 1938. A selection of Down’s drawings is part of the Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum collection—a lasting reminder of early innovation in teaching practice.

Associate Professor John Harcourt OAM

Professor Emeritus Sir Arthur Barton Pilgrim Amies (1902–1976) was dean of the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Dental Science from 1934 until he retired in 1967. He contributed immensely to dentistry and oral and maxillofacial surgery in Victoria.

He was a ‘big man physically’ with a big personality that ‘inevitably led to differences of opinion with other similar personalities’.1 But it was his personality and spirit that enabled him to achieve so much.

Amies was born in Perth, Western Australia. He completed dentistry at the University of Melbourne in 1924, and medicine at Edinburgh University in 1928. Returning to general dental practice in Melbourne, Amies concurrently completed a DDSc (1929) and DLO (1933). In 1934 he was awarded an FRACS after previously attaining an FRCS(Ed). His private practice, meanwhile, matured into one of oral surgery, radiology and anaesthesia. Amies was an honorary consultant at the Dental, Royal Melbourne, and Royal Victorian Eye and Ear hospitals, and consultant oral surgeon to the Alfred Hospital.

In June 1940 Amies joined the Australian Imperial Force, serving with the 4th Australian General Hospital at Tobruk and the faciomaxillary/plastic surgery unit at the 2nd Australian General Hospital in Egypt. After the war he became president of Melbourne Legacy in 1955 and patron of the ‘Rats of Tobruk’, received a CMG in 1949 and was knighted in 1957.

Amies’ contribution to dentistry was extraordinary. As well as being dean of the faculty for 33 years, he was president of the Australian Dental Association Victorian Branch (1936–37), president of the federal association (1937–39) and an honorary life member from 1970. He established the Dental Research Laboratory (later the Australian Dental Standards Laboratory) in the 1930s and served on the Dental Board of Victoria (1933–35 and 1955–58). Amies was also the driving force, from the 1930s, behind the construction of the new dental school and hospital (later the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne) at Haymarket, which opened in 1963.

Associate Professor Arun Chandu

1. _{CRN, ‘Obituary: Professor Emeritus Sir Arthur Amies’, Australian Dental Journal, vol. 22, no. 1 (February 1977), pp. 59–60; Amies, Arthur Barton Pilgrim’ (finding aid to series 77/13, 79/44 and 94/67), University of Melbourne Archives.}

Professor Emeritus Henry Forman Atkinson MBE, LDS, MSc, DDS, MDSc, FDSRCS (1912–2016) came from Manchester Dental School to the Australian College of Dentistry in 1953 as professor of dental prosthetics. He immediately set his stamp on the department by insisting on all staff members participating in research projects as well as performing their teaching duties. He employed a dental technician, Mr Roy Burgess, to assist staff in their clinical work and patient care.

Professor Atkinson formed a firm and lasting friendship with Dr William Tuckfield, whom he succeeded as head of department. He was in many ways a formal person, but nevertheless approachable and willing to listen to new ideas. He and his wife invited the departmental staff several times to social evenings at their home in Ivanhoe, where his interest in model railways was apparent in the miniature rail circuit in their front garden.

During his first few years he liaised with the architects and builders of the new dental hospital and school being planned for the old Haymarket site. In 1962, in preparation for the move, many projects were put on hold as we packed up items that were needed, and discarded those that were not. We moved into a partial building site in February 1963, ready for the new academic year. It was a real change, as now each staff member had his or her own office and separate telephone! Not long after we moved, Professor Atkinson was instrumental in arranging for the Melbourne Dental Hospital to provide dental technicians to assist undergraduate students with the technical aspects of their patient care in prosthetics.

Professor Atkinson became dean of the Faculty of Dental Science on the retirement of Sir Arthur Amies in 1967. He had not always seen eye to eye with Sir Arthur, particularly over the question of fluoridation of water supplies, for which he was an ardent advocate. Overall, he was always supportive of his staff, and after retiring in 1978 maintained his association with the school through his interest in the dental museum (now named in his honour) right up to his death at age 103.

Associate Professor John Harcourt OAM

Dr Geoffrey John Wylie BDSc, DDS (Toronto), FRACDS led a passionate career in dentistry, and is remembered with great affection and admiration by his former colleagues as an enthusiastic academic and an inspiring teacher to his students at  the University of Melbourne. He devoted himself to conservative dentistry, making a significant contribution to the field over his career. Geoffrey was driven by excellence in his clinical work and excited by innovation; his services were widely lauded in Victoria. His zeal and commitment in advocating for good dental health were evident through his lectures and his influence as an educator.

Geoffrey died on 29 September 1979 at the young age of 40. He devoted 17 extraordinary years of his life to his practice and research in dentistry. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the cause of dentistry and in memory of his life and work a fundraising appeal was made following his death. In 1982 the Dental Faculty recommended to the University of Melbourne council that the capital in this fund be used to build a centre for postgraduate and continuing education and audiovisual development, reflecting both Dr Wylie’s particular interests and the growing general interest in audiovisual teaching methods. This idea culminated in 1984 with the opening of the Geoffrey J. Wylie Conference Centre on the fourth floor of the East Wing of the former Royal Melbourne Dental Hospital in Elizabeth Street. In 2003, when the Melbourne Dental School moved to its current location at 720 Swanston Street, Geoffrey’s legacy continued to be recognised with the naming of the Geoffrey Wylie Lecture Theatre. The 87-seat theatre’s focus on the most advanced audiovisual teaching equipment was a fitting tribute to Geoffrey’s own interest in the use of audiovisual aids in his teaching.

Dr Simon G Wylie

Professor Emeritus Peter Clarence Reade AM, MDSc(Adel), PhD, MDsc(Melb), DDS(Hon), FDSRCS, FRCPath, FFOPRCPA, FRACDS(Hon) (1930–2009) was a solitary man who spent much of his life educating others. An outstanding academic in dentistry, he nurtured the research arm of the profession during the 1970s and 1980s, while training many of today’s leading clinicians and academics, both in Australia and abroad. He was a maxillofacial surgeon, dean of the University of Melbourne Dental School (1978–79) and head of oral maxillofacial surgery from 1968 until his retirement in 1992. He pioneered oral medicine in Australia and had more than 400 publications to his name.

Born in Adelaide into a family who were originally farmers on Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula, he attended Adelaide Technical High School, where he was an excellent sportsman and head prefect. He graduated in dentistry from the University of Adelaide in 1952, briefly entering private practice and teaching part-time in conservative dentistry. After 15 years of postgraduate training in Adelaide (PhD, 1965) and post-doctoral studies in London and Harvard, in 1968 he was invited to form a new department of dental medicine and surgery at the University of Melbourne. He built a dedicated team of high-quality academics and clinicians, and for the next 24 years oversaw a robust and expanding training program for dental undergraduate and postgraduate students, most of whom would go on to hold positions of influence in dental and medical science. In 1992 Reade retired from a full-time academic position and in 1994 he became professor emeritus and an honorary professor, and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1996. During his career he supervised two Doctor of Dental Science, 19 PhD, 52 Master of Dental Science and three Master of Science candidates.

Home was a small farm near Gisborne, where he grew crops and ran sheep, cattle and deer. His wife, Ene, a microbiologist, and three children were a constant support. Despite cancer in 1997 he continued to work and function against adversity, inspiring many. Reade truly kept his own counsel and rarely judged others openly. Although religious in his early years, he moved away from this and found inner satisfaction through helping to shape others’ professional lives.

Dr Ross J Bastiaan AM, RFD

Clive Wright (b. 1944) graduated with a Bachelor of Dental Science degree from the University of Otago, where he also completed a Master of Dental Science and PhD. Between 1989 and 1997 he was professor of preventive and community dentistry, as well as dean/head of the School of Dental Science at the University of Melbourne. During his tenure, Professor Wright led or was involved in several major reviews of dental services in Australia and in the establishment of the Australian Dental Council, the organisation responsible for accreditation of dental programs offered in higher educational institutions across Australia. He was also responsible for the introduction of dental therapy and then dental hygiene into the University of Melbourne academic programs in the School of Dental Science.

In 2006 and 2009 Clive was a visiting professor in oral health at the Graduate School, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, where he pursued research into the relationship between oral health and general health in older persons, and also taught postgraduate students in dental public health and population oral health. Currently he holds the position of associate director (oral health) and clinical professor at the Centre for Education and Research on Ageing at the University of Melbourne.

In 2015 Professor Emeritus FA Clive Wright was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to population oral health.

Professor Mike Morgan

Professor John Clement (1948–2018) held the inaugural chair in forensic odontology at the University of Melbourne and was deputy head of the Melbourne Dental School. He joined the university from Britain in 1989 and was soon appointed head consultant forensic odontologist to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM). His expertise involved inferring a person’s history by examining their skeletal remains. Over his long career John’s work was crucial for the families of victims, and for legal redress. Through VIFM he worked closely with the Coroner’s Court of Victoria and was in the disaster victim identification teams that responded to the 2001 Bali bombings and 2005 Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand. He worked in the mortuary after the Black Saturday bushfires that devastated Victoria in 2009 and served on expert advisory panels dealing with the identification of missing persons and human remains following conflict and civil strife. These are just the most high profile examples of John’s expertise in forensic odontology being called upon around the world.

In his work at the University of Melbourne, John was a gifted researcher, teacher and mentor. He frequently published in important international scientific journals, and founded the Melbourne Femur Collection, used by researchers worldwide in fields ranging from medical science to anthropology. He helped develop his students’ technical expertise while instilling in them an understanding of the need for compassion and sensitivity as they pursued careers in forensics, dentistry and research. This care and mentoring extended to his Melbourne Dental School associates, who are deeply saddened by the loss of their friend and colleague.

John was a trusted deputy head of school, providing a gentle voice of reason and reassurance. He blessed us all with his brilliance, thoughtfulness, loyalty and humour. Many of us shared his love of motorbikes, of vintage cars and of the Australian bush. We relished the shared activities and conversations, which were often sprinkled with stories  of John’s multi-hued life experiences.

On so many occasions we heard from John how important in his life was his family: his wife Pauline and their children, Hannah, William and Alice.

Professor Mike Morgan

The riveting story of the fluoridation of domestic water supplies was told in a substantial volume published by the United States Public Health Service in 1962.¹ When this book appeared I had embarked on a master’s degree under the guidance of Professor Elsdon Storey at the University of Melbourne. The book described the pioneering research of American scientists H Trendley Dean, Francis Arnold and others, from the 1930s to the 1950s. Their studies brilliantly demonstrated the beneficial effects of fluoride in drinking water at 1 ppm (one part per million), as distinct from the mottling of dental enamel (fluorosis) that occurred at higher concentrations.

Initially, Dean and colleagues sought to identify the cause of often severe mottling, and found that it was fluoride naturally occurring in some domestic supplies. But they also noticed that teeth affected in this way were free of caries. This started a search for other communities with gradually lower concentrations of fluoride in their drinking water supplies, to see if the beneficial effect—the remarkable reduction of caries—could still be achieved, but without the mottling. After exhaustive trials, they hit the jackpot: one part per million led to good-looking teeth and resistance to caries. What’s more, the researchers established that when the water at Grand Rapids (in Michigan, USA) was artificially fluoridated at 1 ppm, the beneficial effect was similar to that in places where the water contained the optimum concentration naturally.

To me, this was a gift from heaven. I was running a busy private dental practice, struggling to deal with rampant tooth decay, particularly in children. Their teeth were hopelessly vulnerable; the traditional techniques of fighting caries were not working.

Professor Storey and I decided to mount a campaign for legislation that would enable authorities to adjust the level of fluoride in Victoria’s major water supplies to 1 ppm. It became a political objective to win. The Australian Dental Association (ADA) financed my travel to many a public hall around the state to advocate to this end. Our opponents were vocal in a most aggressive manner, and on a number of occasions I had to be escorted from the venues.

The key to our success was to achieve solid public support, by means such as letters to the editors of major and regional newspapers. We also had the advantage of total support from ADA members, who were in a very good position to influence their patients. I was active in the state branch of the Australian Labor Party and its support was forthcoming. Now we had to gain support from the other side of politics: the Liberal Party. We needed to neutralise the arguments of the opponents, many of which were fallacious. How to make sure the facts got through to the politicians? We did this by supporting a royal commission under Justice Crisp in Tasmania. We put our case, and some prominent academic opponents put theirs. The result supported fluoridation. This finding won over a number of Liberal politicians, including the premier of Victoria, Dick Hamer.

We finally achieved the support we needed in an unorthodox way. At a press conference, we asked: ‘Who are the faceless men in the Liberal Party stopping fluoridation?’ ‘Faceless men’ was a slogan then in use by the federal Liberals against Gough Whitlam and the Australian Labor Party. Also, we ran an advertisement in the media showing a map of Victoria with the words: ‘Our children’s teeth are in a bad state’.

We achieved the necessary numbers in the Victorian Parliament, and the Health (Fluoridation) Act, which regulates the safe and effective addition of fluoride to drinking water in our state, was passed in 1973, leading to the introduction of water fluoridation in Melbourne in 1977.

Dr Gavan Oakley AM

¹. FJ McClure (ed.), Fluoride drinking waters: A selection of Public Health Service papers on dental fluorosis and dental caries, physiological effects, analysis and chemistry of fluoride, Bethesda, Maryland: United States Public Health Service, 1962.

The original collaborations between the departments of Conservative Dentistry (now Oral Biology) and Dental Medicine and Surgery (now Oral Anatomy, Medicine and Surgery) have been continued with the discovery of the roles of viruses, fungi and bacteria in oral cancer. This is resulting in breakthrough research on causes of cancer and the development of predictive biomarkers.

A characteristic of the rich and varied body of research on oral microbiology at the University of Melbourne is the unwavering focus on preventing oral disease. The unravelling of the molecular mechanisms behind the ways in which oral micro-organisms cause the two most common oral diseases (dental caries and periodontal disease), and the search for ways to decrease their numbers in dental plaque and mitigate their damage to humans—both in the oral cavity and beyond—continues with a new generation of researchers, supported by ever-advancing technology.

Dr Samantha Byrne, Professor Michael McCullough and Professor Stuart Dashper