data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"> The dental practice was during the economic depression of the 1930 s was a matter of survival, with few patients able to afford dental care. Many dentists and other health professionals were drafted into the armed forces in the second world war.
The american dental schools compressed the curriculum of four academic years into three calendar years. This expedient was dropped when the war ended in 1945, although it was flirted with again for a short time in the 1970s.

The 1930s and 1940s were a hard time for dental education. The teaching of basic science was often indolent and the emphasis in the clinical sciences was almost entirely on restorative dentistry and prosthetics. Subjects such as radiology, endodontics, oral diagnosis, pediatric, and periodontics dentistry were disregarded in many dental schools, and full-time faculty were the exception rather than the rule.

There were few educational programs for the preparation of specialists, and the few that did exist varied in quality and length. One of the few bright spots during this difficult period was the beginning of the first controlled water fluoridation projects in 1945.

Dentistry, Dental Parctice, and the Community