Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 14: Medical, Health & Hygiene
DENTAL HEALTH AND DENTAL CLINICS at PMSS
TAGS: dental health; dental clinics; Appalachian dental health; medical; teeth; toothbrush; Dr. Mahall; Dr. Raymond Grant; Dr. Arthur Welch; Louisville, KY, dental clinics
Maya Sudo Album: Small boy with cup and toothbrush, practicing “good dental hygiene.” 021c
DENTAL CLINICS
One of the earliest dental clinics was that arranged with the Kentucky Dental Unit held for 2 weeks in a trailer on campus. In August of 1919, Drs. Arthur Welch and Raymond Grant of Louisville came for a dental work clinic. A comment on that clinic follows
Dr. Grant came back to the School again in 1923 and 1924. In 1922 Dr. Stucky and Dr. Day came to the School and set up one of the most extensive medical clinics ever held at the School for the community at large. Boys House was converted into a temporary extra hospital and even that was stretched, according to the record of Evelyn K. Wells. Dr. McGonigle and Dr. Black Dentists from Pittsburgh came for a second time to PMSS in 1925.
Medical clinics were also sometimes held at the satellite settlements at Line Fork and at Big Laurel.
The medical records for students and for the community remain largely intact in the School’s Archive.
GALLERY: A group tooth brushing at Pine Mountain Settlement School, the early years.
Teaching tooth brushing. melv_II_album_190
Tooth brushing. melv_II_album_184
Dental Clinics continued to be held on the Pine Mountain Settlement School campus during the years the boarding school was in operation and intermittently in the years following. Generally, a trailer would be set up on the campus grounds and the attending nurse would assist the visiting dentist or dentists in their examinations. Often extractions would be conducted or recommendations for follow-up visits to a dentist would be made. Much of the work was gratis.
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- Dentist examining a student at PMSS, c. 1940s.
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- Dentist examining a student at PMSS, c. 1940s
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