A Philadelphia native who spent most of his life in France, Dr. Evans became the dentist to royalty during France’s Second Empire and confidant of Napoleon III and his wife, the Empress Eugénie (probably saving her life at the fall of the Second Empire when he helped her escape to England in the carriage that now resides at Penn Dental Medicine). A highly innovative dentist known for his skills with gold foil fillings, he was the first to use vulcanite rubber as a base for dentures and introduced nitrous oxide as an anesthetic to Europe. Evans left his estate to create a dental school that would be “second to none,” making possible the construction of Penn Dental Medicine’s Thomas W. Evans Museum and Dental Institute at 40th and Spruce Streets.