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damning report of the dental condition of Royal Navy recruits at Sheerness Barracks.
It is of note that in several fields of medicine and surgery that the innovation, research, and implementation of new techniques was led by Defence medical services. This was frequently due to a compelling need to maintain a standard
of military fitness for troops deployed across an expanding colonial empire. These innovations were then subsequently incorporated into mainstream civilian practice. Among many such innovators whose work fundamentally improved the national population’s healthcare were Leishman, McGrigor, Nightingale, Seacole, Gillies, McIndo and latterly recent advances in management of battlefield trauma.
Therefore, it may be surprising that provision of relief from one of the most common afflictions of the armed forces personnel at that time was essentially ignored by the Army Department and it
was left to the civilian dental profession to instigate reform. Notable in this was George Cunningham, a founder member of the BDA, who delivered a paper entitled ‘Dentistry and Its Relation to the State’ that revealed the high incidence of dental disease among service entrants and the woeful treatment facilities. At that time, it was left to military medical officers who had virtually no training in even elementary dental interventions to either extract teeth or prescribe simple pain relief. Indeed, the British Medical Journal was another strident voice in highlighting how many otherwise healthy recruits to the Army were rejected through poor and defective teeth.
It was the Boer War that was the first conflict conducted under a public gaze with scrutiny made possible by photography and telegraphed news reports. Again, it was
the significant wastage of fighting effect because of dental disease that became apparent as the war progressed. Fortunately, the War Department sent out mincing machines to enable the troops to eat
their army rations of tough meat and hard biscuit...The Boer War highlighted the delta in dental provision both in force preparation and on the actual operation itself - 6942 men were admitted to hospitals due to dental issues: one third had to be invalided back
to Britain. However, the authorities were still very slow to act, and their engagement only resulted in 8 full-time dentists being divided between all the major garrisons in the United Kingdom.
It would take another war and a high- profile dental patient before meaningful dental provision assumed its undeniable importance for overall health of a fighting force.
Between 10th and 13th September 1914, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Army attempted to make, and then hold the Aisne River crossing. 1st and
2nd Divisions of the BEF were commanded by a General Douglas Haig who, at the very height of the battle, developed excruciating toothache. Not a single dental surgeon
had accompanied the BEF to France and so a signal was sent to Boulogne where a dentist of international repute was known to be providing dental treatment to soldiers. Auguste Charles Valadier was French by birth but had emigrated in childhood to
the USA where he had trained as a dentist. Returning to France he volunteered to
assist the war effort and became famous among the troops for having converted his luxury car into a mobile dental surgery with a dental chair, drills and equipment – all at his own expense. As a successful dentist he naturally drove a Rolls Royce. By remarkable coincidence Valadier’s car still exists and was auctioned at Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed sale in June 2013. Part the sale entry from the Dentistryiq website as follows:
A 1913 Rolls-Royce is estimated to sell for £600,000 at the Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed Sale on July 12, 2013.
The car is equipped with an interesting story from The Great War: it was used by a dental surgeon to treat facial injuries of wounded soldiers on the frontline.
A race car and a smile: A winning combination
The 1913 Rolls-Royce 45/50hp “Silver Ghost” London-to-Edinburgh Tourer was originally purchased by an Englishman for the modern equivalent of £100,000, only to be sold two years later to Auguste Charles Valadier, a wealthy French-American in Paris. Like many young men, Valadier wanted
to lend his hand in the war efforts and volunteered for the British Red Cross Society the year before in 1914. By 1914, Valadier was using the Rolls-Royce as a mobile dentist’s office in Boulogne, installing a dentist’s chair
in the back of the car.
Using the Rolls-Royce on the frontline,
Valadier became a pioneer of maxillofacial reconstructive surgery during WWI.
One account describes Valadier extracting Haig’s tooth under a hail of bullets. Despite the atrocious combat conditions, the surgical procedure went so well that Valadier received a temporary commission into
the Royal Army Medical Corps as a local lieutenant.
By the end of 1914 there were twenty dentists with the Army and their number continued to grow until at the war’s end in 1918 there were over 800 dentists serving. However, despite the obvious need for
a dedicated dental service for military personnel it was only in 1921 that the then Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, finally established the Army Dental Corps by Royal Warrant.
Both officers and other ranks enlisting
in this newly formed Army Dental Corps (ADCorps) were all posted initially to Depot RAMC Church Crookham where they were given some basic military training. Soldiers continued more intensive military training and undergoing the same preliminary training as their RAMC counterparts followed by specialised training in one of
the two trades then available. These were either as a dental mechanic who made dental prostheses or as a dental clerk orderly who assisted the dentist in the surgery and maintained the surgery’s administration.
Since that ‘Land Fit for Heroes’ after
WW1 failed to materialise the supply of recruits to the Army exceeded demand.
The ADCorps became more selective in prescribing treatment and soldiers received dental treatment dependent on their length of service remaining. Those with only a short time left to serve on their engagement were only treated in cases of urgency.
Burns, L., (2013) Rolls-Royce used in WW1 as a dental surgeon’s mobile office to be auctioned at Bonhams in July. Online. Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed Auction Catalogue 2013.
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