Contents - IADR/AADR

never worked together. Gies had done research on various biochemical aspects of caries, while Williams was
the first to use the term and to describe dental plaque. It would not be an unwarranted assumption that, had they
lived a little longer, both Black and Miller would have been early members and enthusiastic supporters of the
IADR if not actually founding members.
From this intellectual setting, it must be clear that dental research, in its early stages of observation,
rational deduction, and application to disease treatment as well as prevention, began in antiquity and certainly
became interdependently international in both occurrence and development.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL SETTING
The Association of research-minded persons with which this volume is concerned was founded in New
York, a massive city with considerable cultural activity in a period of transition just at the very end of the
second decade of this century. The United States had just concluded its expeditionary force of military and
material might to culminate the world conflict in Europe. In its aftermath, an idealistic President Woodrow
Wilson had gone abroad to set up a new society of nations, a "League of Nations", which most unfortunately his
own country failed to understand and fully accept. So in 1920 the United States was on its way to a retreat from
international problems toward an era of provincial "Normalcy"! But, as history was to emphasize in later
decades, the world would not let the United States return to isolationism for more than a short generation.
The Founder of this new Association to enhance dental research had wisely called the organization an
"international body". Hence it is indeed pertinent to consider both the local and world environment, since it
certainly had a bearing on dental research as to its motivation and acceptance in a nation and world not at all yet
fully conscious of its multifold attributes and abilities.
What was the immediate physical background in the United States at that time? The domestic scene in
1920 was definitely different from that of a half-century later, at least with respect to its state of technology,
which evolved rapidly over the next five decades. The iceman made his daily rounds every summer day, as well
as the early-morning milkman—by horse and wagon. Yet there were in the United States 8 million automobiles
in 1920, with the figure increasing tremendously thereafter, to 110 million half a century later. The auto brought
about a major transformation in social patterns during the next two decades, as the rural area became accessible
to the urban dwellers and the converse. The face of the land changed, with road-building in every direction. The
clop of the horse's hoof, the trolley bell, and whistle of the steam locomotive were still in evidence in 1920 but
were surely being superseded. Many technological changes as well as a few basic scientific ones were
underway, as already pointed out in the first two chapters.
In the year of the Founding, the conterminous United States population was 105,710,620, but the world
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR DENTAL RESEARCH (IADR) – THE FIRST FIFTY YEAR HISTORY PAGE 19