Preserving Dental History Matters McGowan believes that historical artifacts are more than curiosities—they reveal the origins of current dental practices and the reasons behind them. “Often the reasons behind why dentists practise dentistry the way they do only become clear when you look back at the circumstances in which those practices developed,” she says. “You can learn a great deal about the choices made today by understanding what was happening when those tools and techniques were first invented.” Equally important, McGowan says, is the sense of perspective history provides. “We don’t always realize how far we’ve come and the struggle and effort that people put into those advances,” she says. “Take anesthesia, for example. Dentists were central to developing both general and local anesthesia—things we now take for granted in pain management. When you understand what came before, you gain a deeper appreciation for the advances we all benefit from today.” For McGowan, learning about dental history also cultivates respect for the ingenuity of earlier generations. “So much of what we rely on today was because of the tireless efforts of the people who came before us,” she says. “When you see how people in the past innovated, struggled and persevered, you develop a new appreciation for the effort it took to get here.” She recalls Dr. Crawford’s own words about what his collection revealed about the dentists of the past. “We were here. We struggled, we innovated, we developed.” Artifacts Tell the Stories Among the Crawford Dental Collection’s most striking artifacts are tooth extraction keys, hooked instruments that gripped a tooth before it was twisted out of the jaw. “Deeply unpleasant, often did a lot of harm to the jaw and to the teeth surrounding the one that was pulled out,” McGowan says. “Yet, compared with physicians of the same period, who lacked antibiotics or germ theory, the extraction could offer effective relief.” As well, the collection includes a dental cast of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. “It’s always interesting when you have pieces coming from notable people because you can see imperfections and eccentricities you don’t see in a plastic model,” McGowan says. “My parents once asked if I even knew who Diefenbaker was when touring the Diefenbunker museum, and I was able to reply, ‘Yes, we have a cast of his mouth in the collection.’” Dentists were central to developing both general and local anesthesia—things we now take for granted in pain management. White plaster dental casts of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, made in his 70s—his wife Olive joked, “John does not find his strength in the dental chair!” Tooth extraction keys were widely used in Europe and North America in the 1700 and 1800s, before safer forcepsbased techniques became the norm. 23 Issue 1 | 2026 | Issues and People
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