The History of Dental Hygiene
Dental hygiene (prophylactic care) is a key element in maintaining good dental health. It had its beginnings in the early 1900s with a Connecticut dentist, Alfred Civilion Fones, who is credited with starting the first school for dental hygienists. The concept of preventative dental care was not yet a popular one and it was Dr. Fones who, based on the discovery that tooth decay is caused by bacteria, correctly insisted that dental hygiene was a key factor in oral health.
Dr. Fones started dental hygiene training with his cousin, his office assistant at the time. He instructed her on the correct ways to properly clean teeth and perform the other preventive treatments, specifically on the children in his practice. That training makes her the holder of the unofficial title as the first dental hygienist in history.
The doctor, realizing that children were the best first level patients, he designed a program that brought the benefits of regular dental prophylaxis to all the schoolchildren in Bridgeport, Connecticut, after which he designed and opened the first school for dental hygienists. The school began in the doctor’s garage, in the rear of his carriage house office in Bridgeport. The doctor enlisted his faculty from dentists who were deans at dental schools in Pennsylvania and Harvard. There were seven professors from Yale, two from Columbia, and, as time went on, other experienced dentists from around the world. The first twenty-seven dental hygienists graduated in 1915. Most of the hygienists found work in the Bridgeport school system. Incredible as it may sound, their work resulted in a 75% reduction in cavities amongst the school children.
The School of Dental Hygiene that Dr. Fones founded still exists, but is now located at the University of Bridgeport, not far from the garage where it first began. Today, there are more than two hundred dental hygiene schools and 120,000 registered dental hygienists in the United States.