Joseph Verco, Draper Campbell, Arthur Moore build dentistry on Adelaide University degree/dental school
Draper Campbell (second from left) and Arthur Moore (second from right), among the first Adelaide University dentistry degree graduates in 1921, went on to play key roles in developing the dental profession. Other graduates are H.T.J. Edwards, R.J. Brazil Smith, J.L. Eustace and J.A. O'Donnell.
Image courtesy A. Lake, Australian Dental Association South Australia archives
Joseph Cooke Verco, Arthur Moore and Draper Campbell were vital in developing dental education at Adelaide University in the 1920s.
South Australia’s very first signs of dental training were in 1846 when surgeon Robert Norman advertised for a “gentlemanly youth who would be taken as a pupil for a period of 3 to 5 years” in the Register newspaper. Apprentices had to pay for training that covered clinical and/or mechanical aspects of dentistry without theoretical knowledge.
The push for that knowledge to support the legal structure of a South Australian dental profession came in the 1880s was the flood of doubtful and even charlatan dentists from Victoria where control by a dental board had started in 1888. Price competition from more dental companies and parlours saw South Australian parliamentarians lobbied for set rules and standards for dentists.
The Dentists’ Act 1902 empowered a board – Dr E.A. Wigg, Dr B Smeaton, Dr P. Crank, Dr E.J. Counter, J.T. Hardy and B Thompson – to make regulations and conduct examinations. From 1903, the board set conditions for students to study dentistry and legalised the old apprenticeship system.
Compulsory dental education at Adelaide University started in 1906, with H. Gill Williams lecturing in dental surgery and pathology in a course, from 1908, equivalent to other states’ diploma. Important steps towards an Adelaide dental school included forming the odontological society of South Australia (at the York Hotel, Rundle Street, in 1907) and the dental graduates’ society in 1912. In 1923, these combined as the state dental society of South Australia – later the Australian Dental Association South Australian branch.
After the state children’s department asked the odontological society about the serious problem with children’s teeth, the society’s 1908 annual meeting decided the solution was a dental hospital and training school.
In 1917, when the dental board/university dental curriculum was being revised, the odontological society, dental graduates’ society and Adelaide University agreed a start a degree course in dental surgery. Odontological society members agreed to give gratuitous clinical service at a proposed dental school.
The passionate Arthur Moore was among 10 students at the Theatre Royal Cafe on Hindley Street in 1919 to form the dental students’ society. The Moore name became a byword in the profession, with three generations – Arthur, Kevin, Grahame, Jon, Simon and David – practising dentistry. Arthur Moore spent most of his private practice in Goldsborough House, North Terrace.
Joseph Cooke Verco, Adelaide University's dean of medicine, was critically important in forming a faculty of dentistry. He strongly believed dentistry should be seen as a separate discipline from medicine and have its own academic foundation. He strongly supported generating sufficient funds to enable the faculty of dentistry to cover its operating costs. All this had to be done within the university's financial framework. Suitable staff had to be encouraged to offer their services – including offering himself as the first dean of dentistry.
Verco was able to tap into Red Cross funds left over from World War I to get £15,000 toward a dental school as well as another £10 000 from the South Australian government. This was used to build a dental hospital on Frome Road, Adelaide, opened in 1923.
One of South Australia’s first dental degree graduates (along with Arthur Moore), (Thomas) Draper Campbell chose academia rather than private practice. He set high standards for excellence in research and teaching at Adelaide University’s dental school. With a science doctorate, his interest in anthropology led him to pioneer work of international repute, especially with Aboriginal populations in central Australia. He became a house surgeon in the dental department at (Royal) Adelaide Hospital after graduating in 1921 and became university dean of the dentistry from 1939 to 1958.