Nothing in the history of dentistry has done more to injure the profession in public esteem or to inhibit its educational program than the fallacy that dentistry was forced to accept autonomy as a consequence of the unfavorable action of the Medical School, University of Maryland.
“Rejecting” Dental Education
The first recorded mention of any opposition to Harris and his plight to establish formalized dental education occurred nearly 30 years after any supposed rejection, and comes from a eulogy for Chapin A. Harris presented in the 1861 Dental Register of the West by James Taylor, a prominent dentist and friend of the Harris family, shortly after Harris’s death in 1860.
“It appears that in the early establishment of the Baltimore School, Dr. Harris met with some of the opposition which such enterprises are generally doomed to encounter. Many of the [medical] profession either opposed, or rendered no aid; and the medical department of the University of Maryland opposed the measure.” p. 84
This idea of Harris’s rejection by the University of Maryland did not, however, take into account a number of factual parts of Harris’ life and endeavors during the 1830s in Baltimore, but rather gave voice to the opposition both Taylor and Chapin’s brother John Harris faced in the Ohio River Valley in their own endeavors to progress dental education.
Follow the timeline below of significant events from Chapin Harris’ life during the 1830s after he and his brother left Ohio for Baltimore.
Est. 1829 or 1830
Chapin Harris and his brother James left Ohio for the East Coast.
Est. 1831
They practiced first in Fredericksburg, Virgina before settling in Baltimore to learn under the preceptorship of Horace Hayden.
1833
The Medical and Chirurguical Faculty of Maryland awards dental licenses to Chapin and James.
1835
Listed in Matchett's Baltimore City Directory as "Harris, C.A., dentist 76 Pratt st," where he praticed with his brother James, a few blocks away from Hayden who lived and practiced at the "s w cor Charles & Mulberry"
1837
Listed as an undergraduate at the Washington Medical College of Baltimore and also received an honorary M.D. from the school.
1837-1838
Likely attended the lecture given by Horace Hayden to the students and faculty of the College of Medicine, University of Maryland, which was also open to the medical community of Baltimore and members of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland.
1839
Along with Eleazar Parmly of New York, published the first Journal of the American Society of Dental Surgery.
Gathered the support of the medical and political community of Baltimore and Maryland to bring a bill to charter the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery to the State of Maryland legislature, along with Horace Hayden, Thomas Bond Jr., and Willis H. Baxley.
After Taylor’s eulogy, which was initially printed in one of the most well-read dental journals at the time, and re-printed in other dental and medical journals, no other mention of the University of Maryland’s “rejection” was printed until 1884, another 24 years after Harris’ death.
In 1884, Richard B. Winder, then Dean of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, was in a feud with his predecessor, former Dean Ferdinand J.S. Gorgas, and another colleague, James H. Harris, who left the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery to found the University of Maryland’s Dental Department in 1882. In retaliation, Winder contributed an article on the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery to the Wilson’s Medical Directory, a local Baltimore medical directory, which contained the following passage:
“A graduate in medicine who had adopted dentistry as his calling [Chapin A. Harris], perceiving the relations of the two professions, applied to a medical college [University of Maryland] in this city, already venerable in the rank of schools for the formal recognition of dentistry; and the founding by that institution of a chair, or chairs of dentistry, “Dentistry indeed! A mere trade to ask for partnership with medicine.” The outcome of this refusal was the founding, in 1839 [sic.] of the “Baltimore College of Dental Surgery,” the first, and for some time the only, dental college in the world.”
Winder, not attributing any sources, especially for his dramatized quote, presented this information as a way to lessen the credibility of his school’s largest and closest competitor. He, likely having read Taylor’s comments, continued to embellish the story of “rejection” to suit his own personal motives. This, along with Taylor’s comments, were the only two written records of any rejection occurring up to this point in history.
Winder’s words, however, would inform three significant texts, the last of which completely transformed dental education in the 1920s and was read by numerous practicing dentists. The first was Eugene Fauntleroy Cordell M.D.’s 1891 Historical Sketch of the University of Maryland, School of Medicine (1807-1890).
“The University [of Maryland] has a connection with the founding of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery of which few are now aware. This institution was chartered in 1839, and the founders first made application to the authorities of the University for admission as a separate department thereof. This being refused, they established an independent dental school, the first, it is claimed, in the world. It cannot but be regretted that their offer was not was not accepted, as with the facilities at hand a dental department could have been readily engrafted upon the medical and a higher standard of requirements enforced. Dentistry should be regarded as merely a specialty of medicine, standing upon the same footing as ophthalmology, dermatology, neurology, etc. As practiced hitherto, it has amounted to little more than a mechanical trade. At the time referred to, however, it must be remembered that the University [of Maryland] was in an unsettled condition or else just emerging from it. The almost phenomenal success of the recently established dental department shows what might have been done in this direction.”
This passage included the following footnote, however:
“The writer is unable to give his authority for the above statement, not having made a not of it or else having lost the reference…”
