The following is excerpted from The History of the Philadelphia County Dental Society by Milton B. Asbell, D.D.S.:
On July 20, 1886, at the request of Dr. Alonzo Boice, a meeting of Philadelphia dentists was held at the office of Dr. Charles E. Pike, at 1415 Walnut Street, for the purpose of organizing a dental society for mutual advancement and professional protection and to seek the enforcement of the laws of the Commonwealth governing the practice of dentistry. As a result of their deliberations, this society was to be the Philadelphia County Dental Society. An application for a charter was prepared and recorded with the Recorder of Deeds in Philadelphia and approved on October 11, 1886 in the Court of Common Pleas, No. 3, for the County of Philadelphia.
Fifty Philadelphia dentists were invited to the first meeting of the Philadelphia County Dental Society on November 30, 1886 in the Hall of the College of Physicians, 13th & Locust Streets. The first members included prominent dentists whose distinguished careers in practice, education and organization ranked among the finest in the country - deans and future deans of Philadelphia's two dental schools, presidents of the American Dental Association and the Pennsylvania Dental Association, the inventor of electrical and mechanical dental instruments, an internationally recognized oral surgeon, a pioneer dental librarian, and the author of the most outstanding encyclopedic volume on dentistry.
Over 10 boxes of materials (publications, journals, photographs and other historical documents from the Philadelphia County Dental Society were donated to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
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