John Eskdale Fishburn : first graduate dentist of the University of Malta

Abstract

The regulation of dental surgery developed slowly during the nineteenth surgery. Warrants for licence to practice as surgeon dentists were initially issued by the Government on the recommendation of the Medical Board. The University by the new Statute of 1907 was empowered to examine and award a Diploma in Dental Surgery. John Eskdale Fishburn, a student from Guy's Hospital serving in the Royal Navy was the first to be awarded the Diploma.Dental.Surgery. Recent contacts with his family have produced details of this colourful and remarkable person. It is likely that the practise of dentistry in Malta during the early nineteenth century was not much different from that of the rest of Europe. The European picture of dental treatment in Europe at that period is now being carefully studied and many old misconceptions are being clarified.1 Dental treatment was mainly surgical, predominantly dental extractions, together with the use of herbal and patented medicines, mostly of spurious value and at about this time there were the initial steps in the development of prosthetic and restorative dentistry. Persons attending to diseases of the teeth and mouth did not comprise one single professional group but were persons of varied background, training, and capability including graduate physicians, surgeons, apothecaries and semi-professionals such as dentists and surgeon dentists, phlebotomists, tooth-drawers, charlatans and quacks.