Volume 219 Issue 6, 25 September 2015
'HISTORY OF DENTISTRY IN 12 OBJECTS' SERIES: STUDENT INSTRUMENT BOX
The cover series for volume 219 celebrates 80 years of the British Dental Association (BDA) Museum. Each front cover features an object which highlights a landmark in dental history. The catch is that the object is placed out of its historical context and in a modern environment, causing you to look twice at each picture. The landmark objects were chosen by BDA Museum volunteers.
The cover of this issue features a dental students instrument box from the 1960s, photographed in one of the clinical skills laboratories at the UCL Eastman Dental Institute in London. With the opening of the Dental Hospital of London in 1858, and the London School of Dental Surgery and the Metropolitan School of Dental Science the following year, demand for a dental box for all the instruments the students were obliged to buy became urgent. In the 1870s Claudius Ash supplied a 5-drawer box similar to the one in the cover image. In those days it would have been lined with cloth and came with a full range of instruments including forceps, elevators and all the usual restorative equipment; much of which we would still recognise. At a cost of 13 guineas, equivalent to £1,150 today, it didnt come cheap! By the 1960s students were only expected to supply their own hand instruments. In the mid-1970s the individual student box was in decline with instruments and handpieces supplied from the hospital central sterilisation.
Photography by Filip Gierlinski
Website: www.filskifoto.com
Email: filip@filskifoto.com
With thanks to Henry Schein for making their London Showroom available for this photo shoot.
With thanks to the UCL Eastman Dental Institute for making their clinical skills lab available for this cover photoshoot. The Department of Continuing Professional Development at UCL Eastman Dental Institute has over 50 modern phantom head units within three dedicated state of the art clinical skills laboratories.
Editorial
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