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Zeal of Acceptance: Balancing Image and Business in Early Twentieth-century American Dentistry

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Medicine Studies

A profession without a soul is at best only a refined trade, and, say what we will, there is something about professional life that transcends the best there is in tradesmanship. And it is this tendency to tradesmanship and commercialism today that threatens the very foundations of our calling.

(Johnson 1930e, 727).

Abstract

In April 1931, the American Dental Association’s Seal of Acceptance was introduced. The seal is still in use today and has been widely praised in dental literature as a symbol of safety, efficacy and credibility within dental therapeutics and an icon of professionalism for the American Dental Association. The celebratory rhetoric perpetuates a problematic narrative of a unified profession. I argue that it is necessary to go beyond the standard narrative. The complex history of the introduction of the acceptance programme in 1930 and 1931 revolves around personal zeal and struggles for authority between different fractions within the American Dental Association seeking to balance professional ideals with economic necessities. I show how authority and professional identity was claimed, redistributed and communicated within a professional organisation, and demonstrate how the seal was invoked to influence marketing strategies of dental manufacturers, reverse the relationship between manufacturers and the profession of dentistry, to brand dentistry in a wider, public context, and how it became an economic thorn in the side of the Board of Trustees of the American Dental Association.

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Notes

  1. In this regard the profession of engineers is a comparable example of another practise profession moving between a market place and professional ideals opposing economical pursuits (see Marsden and Smith 2005, 7, 255; Andersen 2011; Arapostathis 2008, 69,70).

  2. This approach is inspired by studies in the history of science and technology focusing on how journals have been used to mould opinions and steer controversies. Peter C. Kjærgaard and Eugene S. Ferguson have stressed the importance of the ideology and loyalties of editors when studying professional journals. I argue that dental journals were tools in the hands of editors, used to shape the identity of the profession (Kjærgaard 2004; Ferguson 1989).

  3. See for example the January issue 1927 which featured 76 pages of advertisements.

  4. Dental Cosmos is a good example of a well respected trade journal of the time. It has been argued that this was the most important professional dental journal of the early twentieth century (Hook 1985; McCluggage 1959, 285). Dental Cosmos was incorporated into JADA in 1937.

  5. For the paragraph on advertising in the Code of Ethics, 1930, see Johnson (1930b, 1352–1353).

  6. A forthcoming focus section of ISIS highlights the importance of “following the money” when studying the history of science, technology and medicine. Financial ambitions, necessities and possibilities have had an unquestionable influence on how actors have behaved (Andersen et al. 2012; Edgerton 2012; Kjærgaard 2012; MacLeod 2012).

  7. Johnson had a doctoral degree in law (LLD) and dental surgery (DDS). In the early twentieth century dentists graduating from university colleges were awarded either a DDS degree or a DMD degree, depending on which university they graduated from. Most universities awarded the DDS (Doctor of Dental Surgery) whereas Harvard and a few other schools due to their practice of awarding degrees in latin awarded the DMD (Dentariae Medicinae Doctoris). The two degrees covered essentially the same content. The schools of dentistry had not agreed upon a common curriculum but this issue was not tied to the names of the degrees, and curricula varied just as much between various schools awarding the DDS degree (McCluggage 1959, 168–176).

  8. Biographical information on actors has been gathered from Who was who in America and from their respective contributions in journals where nothing else is indicated (NN 1943).

  9. See also the notice in Journal of the American Dental Association May 1930, in which readers are warned to discriminate between labels and advertisements since the Federal food and drugs act only controls the labels: (NN 1930).

  10. PhG designates graduate in pharmacy.

  11. To many dentists, medicine represented the ideal profession on top of the professional hierarchy in which they tried to position dentistry. Discussions on the relationship between dentistry and medicine played an important part in the disciplinary boundary work of early twentieth-century dentistry (Grumsen 2012).

  12. This advertisement was one in a run of Colgate advertisements published in the journal carrying the same message in different variations. See the advertisement sections of the various issues of JADA in 1930. In October 1930 CDT announced in its report, that Colgate Ribbon Dental Cream had been accepted for admission to “Accepted Nonofficial Dental Remedies” (Council on Dental Therapeutics 1930b). In November 1930 A Colgate advertisement in JADA carried the statement “This product is acceptable to the Council on Dental Therapeutics of the American Dental Assn.” for the first time. See Fig. 4.

  13. Apart from being an editor, Johnson was also an author of poetry and collections of essays. See for instance Johnson (1901, 1919). His essays centred on good manners, morality, and home spun philosophy, and his poems reflected everyday situations such as naming a baby, a child’s birthday and quarrelling.

  14. The papers were printed in the April 1931 issue of JADA. (Hanzlik 1931; Smith 1931; Palmer 1931).

  15. http://www.acd.org/history.htm, Accessed 17 Jan 2012.

  16. Paul John Hanzlik, Ph.G., AM, MD and professor of pharmacology, Stanford University, was an honorary fellow of ACD and member of Sigma Xi and AAAS. Percy Rogers Howes, ScD, DDS and professor of dental science, Harvard University, was a member of IADR and served as president of ADA (1928–1929), Arno B. Luckhardt, MD, PhD and professor of physiology, University of Chicago was honorary fellow of ACD and member of IADR, Sigma Xi and AAAS. John A. Marshall, DDS, PhD and professor of pathology and biochemistry, University of California, was member of Sigma Xi and IADR and associated editor of Journal of Dental Research. Victor C. Myers, PhD, ScD and professor of biochemistry, Western Reserve University, was member of Sigma Xi, IADR and fellow of AAAS, and Ura Garfield Rickert, AM, DDS and professor of physiologic chemistry, hygiene and therapeutics, University of Michigan, was president of IADR (1930–1931) and member of ACD in which he later served as vice president in 1931 and president in 1932.

  17. For the history of IADR see Orland (1973b).

  18. Johnson states that the resolution was enacted by the Board of Trustees at its meeting February 2, 1931, which means that the resolution was enacted immediately following the critical symposium at the Midwinter Clinic. The enactment of the resolution was a direct reaction to the papers.

  19. See Council on Dental Therapeutics (1930f, c).

  20. Editorial note in Council on Dental Therapeutics (1930f, 1751).

Abbreviations

ADA:

The American Dental Association

CDT:

The Council on Dental Therapeutics

JADA:

Journal of the American Dental Association

DDS:

Doctor of Dental Surgery

DMD:

Doctor of Dental Medicine

LLD:

Doctor of Laws

PhG:

Graduate in Pharmacy

ACD:

American College of Dentists

IADR:

International Association of Dental Research

AAAS:

American Association for the Advancement of Science

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Acknowledgments

I appreciate the comments and suggestions on drafts of this paper made by Peter C. Kjærgaard, Casper Andersen, Jakob Bek-Thomsen, Hans Henrik Hjermitslev and Mathias Clasen. I would also like to thank the School of Dentistry, Aarhus University, for granting me access to its extensive collection of historical dental journals and Janne Lytoft Simonsen for sharing her knowledge of the collection and for her invaluable help in locating important sources.

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  1. Interdisciplinary Evolutionary Studies, Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Stine Slot Grumsen

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Correspondence to Stine Slot Grumsen.

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Grumsen, S.S. Zeal of Acceptance: Balancing Image and Business in Early Twentieth-century American Dentistry. Medicine Studies 3, 197–214 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12376-012-0075-y

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