Bainbridge, Ohio: The Cradle of Dentistry

A tiny home museum is the place where all dental education began in America, led by a doctor whose students continued his work by opening the first dental colleges in the U.S.

The small southern Ohio town of Bainbridge is home of the Harris Dental Museum, a small museum dedicated to the history of dentistry. It is housed in the building where the first school of dentistry in the United States was founded. It has an interesting collection of antique dental equipment, much of which wouldn't be out of place in a medieval torture chamber.

In the late 1820s Dr. John Harris was a medical doctor interested in dentistry. He turned his little home into the first dental school in the U.S. -- then left town and abandoned medicine altogether only a couple of years later. But he had been an enthusiastic teacher, and the nine students that he left behind went on to become America's first trained dentists. His home was eventually listed on the on the National Register of Historic Places, restored to its 1820s appearance and turned into a museum, and designated, "The Cradle of Dentistry."

Very small museum located on the edge of Bainbridge, Ohio on Ohio Route 50. Interesting, my wife and I stopped there several years ago.