In Saint Petersburg, starting from 1883 and over the next 140 years, various professional dental public organizations (societies, trade unions, associations) were created and functioned, analyzing the activities of which one can find a certain similarity in the tasks they solve. Despite the specific conditions of a particular historical era, almost all of them actively performed essentially the same functions related to the organization of scientific communication of dental specialists, protection of their rights, regulation of dental practice, and development of professional education and social design in the healthcare sector. Turning to the retrospective of the self-organization of the dental community enables establishing historical continuity between the modern association of dentists and first societies of dentists, to feel the connection of times and understand that people who devoted their lives to the dental specialty and make up this community are united today by the same values that have always united them, regardless of the change in social formations.