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Images of Dentistry through the ages

Carol Parry*

There are two excellent sources on the web if you are looking for dental images for illustrating a talk or article. My favourite site is the medical photographic library of the Wellcome Library http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/catalogues.html. The images on this site include ancient instruments such as Graeco-Roman bronze forceps and Roman dental forceps and also illustrations from 19th and early 20th century medical instrument catalogues such as a dental drill worked by an Archimedean screw from a J.Weiss and Son catalogue of 1889. Famous dentists are illustrated as well as more obscure practitioners. For example there is a trade card of Martin Van Buchell dated 1770 with the dentist seated on a wonderful spotted horse.

The other main source for medical images on the web is the U.S. National Library of Medicine whose digital library can be found at http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/gw_44_3/chameleon?skin=nlm&lng=en Using the search term “dentistry,” I found the earliest image on the database to be a woodcut dating from 1574. There are 195 images in all on the subject of dentistry and 52 on dentists. Payment for use of the images is required for both the Wellcome and the National Library of Medicine sites.

A lesser-known image resource can be found on the website of the Oregon Health and Science University Digital Resources Library which can be found at http://drl.ohsu.edu/index.html. Many of the images on this resource were taken from a history of dentistry exhibition held at the university in 2004. Payment for use of the images is not required but the University would like the source of the image acknowledged.
The search engine Google claims to have “the most comprehensive image search on the web.” Just go to Google at http://www.google.co.uk/ and click on the images link. Don’t forget that the images may well be subject to copyright.
If all these fail then contact the Library at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow which contains many books with images of dental instruments and dental procedures. We will be happy to try and source the image/s you require from our resources.

Website address error
We apologise for printing an incorrect web address for the group, on the title page of the last two issues. Confusion was compounded by problems with the College web site which are now resolved. (Ed)

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*Carol Parry, BA, DAA, Archivist, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow; e-mail: carol.parry@rcpsg.ac.uk

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