Are there dramatic physiological differences between teeth/gums and the rest of the body? Or is it just tradition?
In: Biology
The separation mainly happened because of how the professions started. In the middle ages, Dentistry started with “barber dentists” who would amputate limbs, pull teeth, and cut hair, since barbers were the ones who had knives and scissors. Dentistry then spun off with Fauchard, a surgeon in the 17th century who turned dentistry into a trade. Making dentures and fake teeth made dentistry more of a craftsman trade which became more and more specialized. Physicians (mostly surgeons at this point) would keep amputating limbs and offering other remedies like blood letting. At this point dentists were seen as masters of their craft and physicians were considered more “barbaric”.
More advances like germ theory in the 19th century and the discovery of new drugs like penicillin throughout the 20th century brought the age of modern medicine, but dentistry had already spent a few hundred years separate from physicians. Now we have separate schools, separate accreditation and licensing organizations, and separate professional associations.
There are other professions like podiatry that have completely separate training but also work in a similar area as physicians. Some podiatrists go on to have specialized training and do surgery.
On the other hand, the osteopathic medicine (DO) field has merged with medical doctors (MD) showing that different but closely related profession can combine together.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2014/02/04/dental-medical-health-care
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentistry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentistry)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medicine#Research
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