Microbiology History at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine by Joseph DiRienzo, PhD

Pictorial History

Microbiology has a long and prestigious presence at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. The high visibility of a basic discipline such as bacteriology at a very early stage in the development of the dental school was no doubt influenced by the presence of prominent bacteriologists at the famous Laboratory of Hygiene of the University of Pennsylvania.

The history of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine really begins with the Philadelphia College of Dental Surgery. The college was inaugurated on October 29, 1852 and located at 328 Arch Street in Philadelphia.

The college was short-lived. However, the faculty petitioned to obtain a new charter and the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery was formed in 1856. It was located at 528 Arch Street until 1864 when it moved to Tenth and Arch Streets. The college moved again in 1871 to Eleventh and Clinton Streets where it remained until 1909. The Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery was the third oldest dental school in the country.

In 1878 the Department of Dentistry was established at the University of Pennsylvania. Several prominent members of the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery resigned to form and join the new department. The department opened in Medical Hall (now Logan Hall) and part was housed in Robert Hare Laboratory of Chemistry (demolished in 1969 to make way for Williams Hall).

The Department of Dentistry received its own building in 1897 when the Dental Hall (now Hayden Hall) was constructed at 33rd and Locust Streets. The last class of the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery graduated and the school merged with the University of Pennsylvania in 1909. This was the third University affiliated dental school in the country after Harvard and Michigan.

Bacteriology was probably a subject at the onset of the formation of the Department of Dentistry since one of the members of the first graduating class (1879), Willoughby Dayton (W. D.) Miller A.B., D.D.S., M.D., Ph.D., Sc.D. (1853-1907), was profoundly influenced to develop new theories related to dental disease. Later, at the University of Berlin, he established the bacterio-chemical theory of dental caries. His work, Die Mikroorganismen der Mundhohle Micro-Organisms of the Human Mouth, published in 1889, is one of the classics in dental literature and a landmark in dental education. This treatise is thought to have re-orientated the dental profession from one of treatment to the idea of prevention.

The study of bacteriology was instituted as a new course for third year dental students in 1896. Alexander Crever Abbott, M.D., Dr. P.H., Sc.D. (1860-1935), the Pepper Professor of Hygiene and Director of the Laboratory of Hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania, was hired as the course director. A. C. Abbott was one of the three founding fathers of the Society of American Bacteriologists (now the American Society for Microbiology) at a meeting held at Yale University Medical School (December 27-29, 1899). He was instrumental in creating the first graduate course in public health in the United States. Several of his seminal works were The Hygiene of Transmissible Diseases and The Principles of Bacteriology which became the text for the dental school course. This was the first textbook on bacteriology in the United States. In 1897 a laboratory for bacteriological work was included in the newly constructed Dental Hall.

During this same period David H. Bergey, A.M., M.D. (1860-1937), an Assistant in the Laboratory of Hygiene, also taught in the dental school. He is most noted for his role in the creation of Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology, which has been considered the "bible" of bacterial taxonomy since 1923 when the first edition was printed.

Interestingly, the Laboratory of Hygiene (later Smith Hall) was next door to Dental Hall. The laboratory was built in 1892 and was the first complete laboratory of bacteriology and hygiene in the United States [ASM News 58:304-305 (1992)]. Sadly, Smith Hall was demolished to make way for a multistory chemistry laboratory named the "Institute for Advanced Science and Technology".

In 1912 the Thomas W. Evans (1823-1897) Museum and Dental Institute School of Dentistry University of Pensylvania was formed through the generosity of the most famous benefactor of the school. A new building, named after Evans, was erected by 1915 on the site of his Philadelphia estate at the northwest corner of 40th and Spruce Streets.

The first course taught at the new Evans Institute Building was crown and bridgework and the second was Bacteriology. Around this time (1914) a graduate of the Medical Department of the University, Nathaniel Gildersleeve, (1871-1919) was made Professor of Micro-Biology and Bacteriopathology. Gildersleeve taught bacteriology to the dental students and is considered to be the first head of the microbiology department. He was instrumental in the appointment of Joseph Luke Teasdale Appleton, Jr., D.D.S. (1888-1980), a graduate of the Department of Dentistry (1914), as an Instructor in Microbiology and Bacteriophysiology. Appleton took over teaching the course when Gildesleeve died of cancer in 1919. Appleton wrote the textbooks Bacterial Infections: with Special Reference to Dental Practice (1925), Bacteriology for the Dental Hygienist (1927), and A Laboratory Guide to Bacteriology (1927). He became Dean of the dental school in 1941 and retired from teaching bacteriology in 1958.

In 1951 a course in microbiology replaced bacteriophysiology and the name of the department was changed from Bacteriophysiology to Microbiology. Ned Blanchard Williams, D.M.D. (1912- ), a 1938 graduate of the dental school, was appointed as the third chairman of the department in 1949. In 1972 Benjamin Franklin Hammond, D.D.S., Ph.D. (19??- ) assumed the chairmanship of the department. The current chairman, Gary H. Cohen, Ph.D. (1934- ), was appointed in 1985.

The information about the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine provided on this page was obtained from:
A Century of Dentistry
A History of the University of Pennsylvania
School of Dental Medicine 1878-1978
Milton B. Asbell
The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania (1977)

University of Pennsylvania
Its History, Traditions, Buildings and Memorials
6th edition
George E. Nitzsche (ed.)
International Printing Company, Philadelphia, PA (1916)

The University of Pennsylvania Today
Its Buildings, Departments and Work
Cornell M. Dowlin (ed.)
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA (1940)

I am grateful to Ms. Patricia Heller (Head Librarian of the Leon Levy Library) and Ms. Teresa Snyder (Assistant Director of the University Archives and Records Center) for their help in obtaining reference materials. Ms. Heller can be reached at:
heller@pobox.upenn.edu.
Inquiries for The University Archives can be sent to:
uarc@pobox.upenn.edu

Other University of Pennsylvania Historical Web Sites
University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center
Penn 1830: A Virtual Tour

For more information about this web site, email dirienzo@pobox.upenn.edu.