The dawn of modern dentistry in Japan

Abstract

Medicine is an applied science, and its development requires paradigm shifts and incorporation of knowledge from the outside world. The process of applying knowledge gained from foreign countries is particularly important in Japan, an island country. As shown by Ohno and Hasaka [1] the dawn of modern dentistry in Japan began when Western dentists such as William Clark Eastlake, Henry Winn, and William St. George Elliot visited and started practicing in Japan, and Japanese intellectual demand for the science grew. Japanese scientific advancement had previously depended on China and Korea, but modern scientific progress required importing Western technology and knowledge. However, Japan had a policy of national seclusion in those days, and its only inflow of Western knowledge came from the Netherlands. Nevertheless, some Western anatomy books had been introduced and translated into Japanese during the seclusion period. From 1823 to 1828, Dr. Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold of Germany, who pretended to be Dutch, provided medical care and education for the Japanese at Dejima in Nagasaki. It is recognized that he had equipment for extracting teeth [2] (Fig. 1), but it is not clear how much he had been educated in dental technique and methods. Dr. von Siebold was a surgeon and physician, and surgeons of the time extracted teeth, but his level of knowledge of dentistry is unknown. Dr. Eastlake, an American dentist, visited Japan in 1860 during the Edo period, six years after the country opened to the world at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Ohno and Hasaka describe Japanese dental practice during this period [3]: ‘‘There were three types of dental care providers in Japan toward the end of the Edo period (1850—1867). One was ‘‘oral physicians’’ (medical doctor specialized in the treatment of teeth, tongue and throat) treating people of rank such as samurais and court nobles. ‘‘Denturists’’ performed the treatment for toothache, the extraction of teeth, and the fabrication of wooden dentures for commoners. The last category was ‘‘charlatans’’ who attracted people by showing off their skills with aikido (sword-unsheathing) and/or top spinning to sell toothache remedies and brushing powder. Some of these charlatans actually acquired skills at tooth extraction and the fabrication of wooden dentures.’’ In this environment, foreign Western dentists made the opening to modern dentistry in Japan possible; Eastlake’s practice in Japan enabled his Japanese employees to get scientific information. Knowing the history of the development of dentistry in one’s own country and in other countries is important for critical appraisal of current problems and for deepening understanding about one’s occupation.