Life Downstream

When visiting a new place it is not only important to get a sense of what makes life in this city unique, but what unique attractions this place has to offer visitors. Virtually every big city has a science center, aquarium, and art museums and while most of these are excellently done attractions, you’ve got to dig deeper! While recently visiting Baltimore, I dug deeper and I discovered the National Museum of Dentistry.

I can’t count how many cities I’ve visited and how many aquariums, art museums, and science centers that I’ve taken in, but I have never heard of a dentistry museum. This moved other more traditional attractions to lower slots on my priority list. I had to see this, and my curiosity was rewarded greatly.

Baltimore is home to the first school of dentistry in the world, and in fact the National Museum of Dentistry is housed in the original building of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery through mergers over the years has seen it folded into the University of Maryland, but the history is still there and what a perfect place for the museum for this science. I couldn’t imagine what would be in a museum of dentistry, but I happily turned over a few dollars and jumped in with both feet.

National Museum of Dentistry, Baltimore (Photo by Andrew Horne, featured on Wikipedia)

In the museum there are two distinct types of exhibits: dental history and the modern dental professions. The former exhibits were very visually engaging with a comprehensive collection of dental implants that leave no mystery to me as to why dentists get such a painful reputation. The latter exhibits very clearly demonstrate dentistry as something a lot more comprehensive than just some guy that drills fillings into your teeth.

Prior to visiting this museum I had no particular interest in dentistry, except as an EMT, I once had for a patient someone who had taken a good blow to his jaw, bled like a stuck pig (that’s a technical term!), and remarkably did not lose, break, or chip any of his teeth. Now I feel like I better understand how that could have happened, and can imagine what the outcome could have been like even 100 years ago (though if it were 100 years ago, there’d be no EMT checking him out!).

Though possibly the neatest (and most important) thing exhibited at the museum is how close we are to being able to grow new teeth from stem cells. This is an incredibly interesting scientific development and, while likely expensive when it comes to market, I think signals the coming of even greater science to come in terms of the use of stem cells.

So if you’re in Baltimore and looking for something unique to do, I highly suggest you take 2-3 hours and explore the National Museum of Dentistry. Trust me, you’ll feel better about parting with your money than you will at the aquarium.

For more info, check out their website.