This paper is a study of orthodontistry, the dental specialty concerned with straightening teeth and correcting malocclusion, problems with the way the teeth come together to chew food. Orthodontics provides patients with cosmetic improvements in the look of the face and the line of the jaw. It can also improve chewing and reduce irregular wear on teeth. It can cut down on stress to the jaw and gums, as well as improve the patient's ability to breathe. Experts disagree on the extent to which orthodontal adjustments are necessary to correct minor anomalies. Nevertheless, they agree that most orthodontic work should be planned and carried out by an orthodontic specialist, rather than a general dentist. Orthodontia is one of the most complex of the dental specialties, requiring considerable training beyond the dental degree and necessitating continuing education to keep up with advances in the field.
Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of the use of dental appliances and primitive dental techniques throughout antiquity. A Greek skull from around 300 BC shows how gold wires were used as a form of braces by medical practitioners of the era. Modern orthodontia has its roots in the work of the pioneering 18th century dentist, Pierre Fauchard, in France. Until the early part of the 19th century, however, the care and treatment of teeth and the mouth was considered part of general medicine. The first school in the United States to teach dentistry as a separate discipline was established in Boston in 1840. Improved techniques, equipment, anesthesia, and X-rays gradually began to refine dentists' abilities to preserve and protect teeth. Well into the 20th century, however, patients over 50 who still had a full set of teeth were exhibited in dental schools as exceptional cases.
Orthodontia began to emerge as a separate field of dentistry around the beginning of the 20th century, when Edward H. Angle published A System of Ap...