GENERAL
dental history
Ethics — dental registration in the
seventeenth and early eighteenth century
1,2
3
4
M. Bishop, S. Gelbier, and D. Gibbons,
registrations by far outnumbered those of
the Royal Colleges and Universities.
The first licences following the Henri-
cian statute of 1511, were those issued by
the vicar general on behalf of the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and were limited to
the province of Canterbury. However,
none is recorded in Lambeth Palace
Library until Archbishop Grindal’s register
in 1576.
In the histories of dentistry, some mention is made of the licensing of
tooth-drawers, and those who provided dental healthcare before the
term Dentist started to become general in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. One of the most striking references to
licensing appears in a little piece of doggerel printed under a 1768
print by Dixon after Harris.
5
he scene is a smithy, and the blacksmith
The Archbishop of Canterbury could,
After the Peter’s Pence Act of 1533, the
T
is acting as tooth-drawer to an old lady and still can, award degrees, and he and the Archbishop, through his Master of the
while her husband looks on;
other Bishops could award medical Faculties, issued dispensations throughout
licences, although the practice had fallen all England. Applicants were expected to
into abeyance some hundred years previ- provide evidence of their medical or surgi-
cal expertise, such as letters testimonial.
‘Why squeeze your Hat, and seize my Cap
As if you dreaded some Mishap.
Prove not your Spirits on the Rack
See a Licentiate Not a Quack’
Where the candidate was recommended by
local clergy, physicians, or parishioners, or
a mixture of these, the Faculty Office
insisted on the countersigning or examina-
In brief
The print itself was used to illustrate a
chapter in The Roots of Dentistry edited by
Christine Hillam in 1990 for the British
Dental Association, and the introduction to
the chapter makes it clear that some of
those who treated teeth and toothache were
licensed by the Company of Barber Sur-
• Shows benefit of ecclesiastical
records in dental history
tion by two fellows of the College of
• Clarifies status of dental practitioners
6
Physicians.
in the late seventeenth and early
The relevant Act of Henry VIII earlier
mentioned, which was brought into being
by the renaissance genius of Cardinal
Wolsey and the physician Thomas Linacre,
and on the requirements of which the
eighteenth century
• Gives insight into provision of dental
healthcare in the provinces
1
• Shows activity (official) of women in
medical and dental healthcare
• Reveals official requirement for
continued compliance for retaining
licences in the late seventeenth and
early eighteenth century
geons of London, or by their local bishop.
7
Background
Church insisted, is clear:
Recent discoveries in the archives of Lam-
beth Palace Library relating to medical
licensing by the Vicar General of the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury a century earlier
than the doggerel, have come as a useful
addition to the historical record, showing
practitioners of the dental arts registering ous to the passing of the Medical Acts of
under the same exacting terms as their 1858, which set up The General Council
medical colleagues, at a time when the of Medical Education and Registration of
Church was the major licensing authority the United Kingdom.
for medicine and surgery outside London.
‘....[that] no Person out of the said City,
and Precinct of Seven Miles of the same,
except he have been (as is aforesaid)
approved in the same, take upon him to exer-
cise and occupy as a Physician or Surgeon, in
any Diocese within this Realm, but if he be
first examined and approved by the Bishop of
the same Diocese, or, he being out of the Dio-
cese, by his Vicar General; either of them
calling to them such expert Persons in the
said Faculties, as their Discretion shall think
convenient, and giving their Letters Testimo-
nials under their Seal to him that they shall
so approve, upon like Pain [of Forfeiture for
every Month that they do occupy as Physi-
cians or Surgeons, not admitted nor exam-
ined after the Tenour of this Act, of v.li. [£5]
to be imployed the one Half thereof to the Use
of our Sovereign Lord the King, and the other
Half thereof to any Person that will sue for it
by Action of Debt, in which no wager of Law
nor Protection shall be allowed.] to them
that occupy the contrary to this Act (as is
above said) to be levied and imployed after
the Form before expressed.’
2
Detailed work on the registration func-
tions in Medicine which were part of the
normal business of the Church was taken
in hand by A. W. J. Haggis, who from 1937
until his untimely death in 1946, worked in
the Wellcome Library. This work has not
been published, and Haggis was unaware
of all of the Lambeth Data. Others who
1*
GDP, Past President BSDMFR, Queen Anne House,
2a St Andrew St, Hertford, Hertfordshire SG14 1JA;
2
3
PhD Student Professor of Dental Public Health,
Head of Division, Division of Dental Public Health,
Oral Health Services Research and The Schools of
Dental Nursing, Guy’s King’s and St Thomas’ Dental
Institute, King’s Denmark Hill Campus, Caldecot Rd,
4
3
Denmark Hill, London SE5 9RW; Professor, Division
preceded and followed him, have their
of Dental Public Health, Oral Health Services
Research and The Schools of Dental Nursing,
Guy’s King’s and St Thomas’ Dental Institute,
Guy’s Campus.
*Correspondence to: Malcolm Bishop
REFEREED PAPER
important contributions acknowledged in
the introductory essay and selected reading
list appended to the Directory of Medical
Licences at Lambeth.
As Haggis showed, and the Lambeth
papers confirm, the Church’s medical
4
Received 20.03.01; Accepted 02.07.01
© British Dental Journal 2001; 191: 395–400
BRITISH DENTAL JOURNAL VOLUME 191 NO 7 OCTOBER 13 2001
395