Adelaide orthodontist Percy Begg's light-wire method extracts a world-wide revolution in dentistry from 1928
Percy Begg, who received the 1977 Albert H. Ketcham Award, the highest American honour for outstanding contributions to orthodontic science. and his light-wire dental method.
Brilliant Adelaide orthodontist Percy Raymond Begg revolutionised dental practice worldwide in 1928.
In that year, he broke with tradition as the first orthodontist to extract selected teeth to correct dental crowding. He overcame the problems of previous techniques to close the extracted teeth gaps by using new bracket styles, special stainless steel wire, light forces and three well-organised stages of treatment – all part of his light-wire differential force method. Today’s many orthodontic techniques still include aspects of Begg’s philosophy and appliances.
In 1965, Begg helped write the textbook Begg Orthodontic Theory and Technique and, in 1977, he received the Albert H. Ketcham Award, the highest honour from the American Board of Orthodontics and the American Association of Orthodontists, for outstanding contributions to orthodontic science.
Born in a tent in the goldfields of Coolgardie, Western Australia, goldfields in 1898, Begg came to Adelaide two years later with his accountant father and family. He attended Pulteney Grammar School and St. Peter’s College where he was a classmate of Nobel Prize winner Howard Florey. In 1923, Begg gained his bachelor of dental science from Melbourne University and spent two years at the Angle School of Orthodontia in Pasadena, California, under Dr. Edward Angle, the father of modern orthodontia.
Begg began orthodontic practice in the Verco Building, North Terrace, Adelaide, moving later to the Shell Building. He was the only orthodontist in Adelaide until 1951. He began teaching orthodontics, in 1926, as honorary dental surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital and lecturer in orthodontics at Adelaide University's dental school. Begg also worked with the university’s anthropology researchers studying the skulls of Aborigines to determine how their natural gritty diet had affected their teeth.
In 1935, he received a doctorate of dental science from the university and, in 1949, became honorary consultant dental surgeon to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Begg’s papers reflect reflects his huge work on basic research and clinical experiments. He presented orthodontic courses in Australia and America and lectured in many other countries from 1964 until retied in 1980. A permanent display dealing with the Begg technique is in the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, USA, and Adelaide dental school features the Begg Memorial, an exhibition of his surgery equipment, appliances and patient records.