Contents - IADR/AADR

The concluding statements in the Constitution listing the objectives of the IADR refer to the cumulative
influence of all the former goals toward rendering a more perfect service to humanity. Clearly any one of all of
the inputs alluded to above can and will have such a result. This ultimate question is perhaps the hardest one to
answer when one ponders the question of the relative degree to which the IADR's objectives have been
achieved, according to its original Constitutional goals, during these first fifty years. Perhaps another way of
responding to such a question would be to ask another one, namely: What would dental research (and for that
matter, academic dentistry and even dentistry generally) have been like today were it not for the International
Association for Dental Research?
RETROSPECTIVE AND PROSPECTIVE
Possibly the most significant dream (and ultimate accomplishment) of the pioneering IADR founders
was, in retrospect, the international character of their American-born organization. Why would dentistry differ
from other branches of the healing arts in having its initiation in such organized scholarly pursuits in this
particular field in this particular part of the world? Was it merely that there were several very significant
individuals on the scene in and around New York at the right time? This undoubtedly was of great importance;
but these men undoubtedly would be the first to admit that they stood on the shoulders of their own
predecessors who in all corners of the globe had been pioneers in the field of dentistry.
Several of the pioneers had in fact been very close to home. For had not the first dental school been
established on these shores south of New York—in Baltimore, many years earlier (1840), independent though it
was of the university? Had not the American Academy of Dental Science a similarly early origin? Had not also
the first university-affiliated dental school in the world been established north of New York—in Boston? Why,
in the first place, should it come to bear that the first university-affiliated dental school was established in New
England, rather than in old England; or for that matter, why not in France or in Germany or Austria? How much
had this progress been influenced by special events surrounding the New England scene from the time of John
Greenwood, Paul Revere, Horace Wells, William Morton, and ultimately Nathan Keep, who, following his
chief testimony in the Parkman murder case, was to emerge in 1867 as the first Dean of Dentistry at Harvard,
the first university-affiliated dental school in the world?
There were, of course, also precedents for other international groups of scientists coming together to
compare notes on their research developments. However, such international congresses in medical sciences
initially developed exclusively in Europe and were completely dominated by German scientists for a great many
years of the nineteenth century, before any large numbers of British, French, and, much later, American
scientists entered the field. Thus it is significant that IADR's organized dental research efforts and meetings
should evolve with an international flavor from the very beginning, at least in principle. In fact, this particular
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR DENTAL RESEARCH (IADR) – THE FIRST FIFTY YEAR HISTORY PAGE 35