A Sourcebook of Dental Medicine

Source books are adjunct to teaching of general history, consisting of an anthology of oringinal contributions to a special field by various authors whose work is deemed by the editors to be of seminal importance. Numerous sourcebooks have been published of general medicine and of many medical specialties, but none had yet appeared on dentistry.

A Sourcebook of Dental Medicine is not only an important source of original information for the dentist and the physician interested in historical aspects of their professions, but also for the scholar and the historian who wishes to explore the common background and subsequent development of medicine and dentistry.

This book encompasses in its 860 pages, the "Knowledge of Dental Medicine in Primitive Times and Early Ages of Civilization" (seven chapters), "The Classical and Middle Ages(Ancient and Medieval Times)" (four chapters), "The Renaissance and its Influence" (seven chapters) and "The Modern Era" (four chapters). Each chapter starts with an introductory description of the era followed by a brief biographical note of the author in question and a transcription of his/her major contribution to the field of dental medicine. Many of these important contributions had never been translated into English before the publication of this book. Thus texts that oringinally appeared in Arabic,Greek,German,French,Latin, and other languages can now be read in English.

The book includes 140 articles, either in their entirety or their most relevant parts, and covering many authors, from the Ebers papyrus,Hippocrates and Celsus,to the Arabs,from Vesalius and Eustachius to van Leeuwenhoek,Fauchard and John Hunter, from Rudolf Virchow to W.D. Miller and N.N. Znamensky. The accomplishments of the 20th century are also covered, including the most relevant basic and clinical advance. The section devoted to Forensic Dentistry includes the autopsy report of Adolf Hitler from the Soviet archives and Reidar Sognnaes' identification by the dental features.