For many years throughout history, dental care was provided by those people that cared for the entire body as well. Very primitive methods of dentistry were practiced, and were usually performed by the same doctor that treated your cough or broken arm. It wasn't until sometime during the 18th century that doctors started to specialize in dentistry, and set up practices that provided specific dental care.
In 1760, Englishman John Baker was one of the first to set up a dental practice when he immigrated to America. John Baker was one of the earliest cases of a person that was medically trained to be a dentist, and his immigration and subsequent dental practice he established set the pace for general dental care practices in America.
Once this occurred and dental practices with doctors who specialized in caring for the teeth were established, the dental care industry progressed like never before. Whereas dental care primarily consisted of pulling teeth that were decayed and treating oral infections, new technologies were discovered and dental treatments advanced quickly.
As people became more concerned with the healthy of their teeth, primarily because healthy teeth showed the amount of wealth they had, more general dental practices came into existence with wealthy families often having a favored dentist that they would help to set up their own practice in the area.
In 1839 when the first dental journal the American Journal of Dental Science was published, the increase of those physicians that sought to have their own general dental practice increased, as proper tooth care became more common. Then, in 1840, the first dental school in the world was established in Baltimore, and the field of dentistry grew even large.
As technology advanced and the population grew, the methods used for dental care started to include not only treating dental issues that already existed, but preventative dental care as well. When dental care started to become more affordable, it made it much easier for the average person to also seek out the aid of a dentist, and the number of general dental care practices grew even more.
