TO THE HISTORY OF DOMESTIC DENTISTRY: REFORM OF DENTAL ENGINEERING IN 1918-1921

Abstract

The reform of dental engineering became an important line of work for the People’s Commissariat for Health created in 1918 by the Dentistry Sub - section. The reform had to be carried out under the conditions of military communism and the Civil War, lack of equipment and materials, shortage of professional staff (in pre - revolutionary Russia, dental technicians were trained through apprenticeship with mentors, and they received the right to work in crafts departments). The main efforts of the subsection headed by P.G. Dauge were aimed at prohibiting dental technicians from working independently, frequently arranging dental prosthetics without dentists due to the lack of the latter; engaging dental technicians in the civil service; organizing dental education (the idea of creating educational institutions within the medical departments of universities was abandoned, but dental schools were opened); organizing free dental technical aid (almost impossible to fulfill). In spite of all the difficulties, the Dentistry Sub - section succeeded in one way or another in solving these problems in 1918-1921. The article is written on the basis of archival sources, introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.