A Brief History of the Oral Microbiome Dr. JessicaMarkWelch, PhD, is a senior scientist at the ADAForsyth Institute, which is dedicated to advancing oral health through scientific innovation and research. The first observations of bacteria, made by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek though his hand-made microscope in the 1670s, were from plaque scrapings from his teeth. Leeuwenhoek’s discoveries of what he called animalcules revealed an invisible world of living things too small to be detected by the human eye. “He made little drawings of bacteria that we can recognize today,” says Dr. Jessica Mark Welch of the ADA Forsyth Institute. “Microbiologists have been studying bacteria in the mouth since the invention of this field of study.” A community of bacteria from a sample taken from the tongue. Both the structure and the kinds of bacteria found on the tongue are different from those found on teeth. Images courtesy of Dr. Jessica Mark Welch 24 | 2024 | Issue 1
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