Victorian-Era Dentures in Brisbane, Australia.

There are few formal publications in Australia relating to Victorian-era dentures and reliable evidence relating to their contemporaneous design, ownership and type is almost non-existent. Archeologists have reported only ten denture units retrieved from eight individuals interred in 19th century Australian cemeteries. A salvage excavation in 2001 at the North Brisbane Burial Grounds (NBBG, 1843-1875) uncovered, inter alia, an assemblage of two metal- and two vulcanite-based dentures. The names of the owners, the records of the dental practitioners and allied contextual information have been lost. This report is the first detailed analysis in Australia of 19th century dentures. It presents an investigation into the composition and underpinning laboratory technology within this quartette of NBBG artifacts, which represent half the known, and the only two alloy-based, dentures retrieved from 19th century cemeteries throughout Australia. The data within is a compilation of and extensive literature review, historical research methods, macroscopic inspection, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. The results provide insight into dental practice and affiliated technologies in Victorian-era Brisbane.

Brisbane Dental Hospital and Queensland University Dental College Building Alias The Palace: Heritage Listing.

The National Trust of Queensland placed the Brisbane Dental Hospital and Queensland College of Dentistry Building, alias The Palace, on the National Trust of Queensland Register in April 1997. This action generated no statutory consequences. Within days, the trust nominated The Palace for listing on the Queensland Heritage Register. Under the terms of the Queensland Heritage Act 1992, this nomination could have impeded an imminent $2-million redevelopment within The Palace. Two years later, the Queensland Heritage Council entered The Palace on the Queensland Heritage Register. This procedural delay was unusual and occurred in an era of post-Fitzgerald bureaucratic reform, federal cutbacks to funding for public dental services, tenuous political control of state government and widespread community support for heritage protection. The authors use historical methods to disclose and analyze hitherto inaccessible evidence relating to the delay in the listing. They argue that, against a backdrop of potential controversy, a small band of networked, organized and resolute administrators and Palace-based personnel, achieved the redevelopment. Astute tactics, concurrent rebuilding of health infrastructure, ministerial resolve, the nature of the act, public demand for dental services, the timing of the redevelopment and the political circumstances influenced the outcome.

Public Dental Services, Queensland, Australia: Charles Octavius Vidgen.

Charles Octavius Vidgen was the Superintendent of the Brisbane Dental Hospital, c1917-1945. Hitherto, commentators' reviews rely on imposing but narrow streams of evidence to either ignore Vidgen's influence on the dental profession or portray it as both peripheral and controversial. In this account, the authors use historical method to provide a revisionist account of Vidgen's professional profile and, to a lesser extent, a character resurrection. Vidgen was probably introverted. His orientation relating to dental education became obsolete, inappropriate and disruptive. Vidgen's actions, beliefs and values incurred sustained and organized opposition from academe, the Australian Dental Association Queensland Branch, the Odontological Society of Queensland and some private practitioners. The sociopolitical context, namely the Great Depression and affiliated reconstruction, the community's demand for government-administered dental services, World War II, twenty-five years of continuous Australian Labor Party government in Queensland, Edward Hanlon's authoritarianism and the emergence of a welfare state were also relevant to Vidgen's becoming a nonconformist, nonjoiner and an outcast. However, the authors posit that, for the socially disadvantaged and the regionally and remotely domiciled, Vidgen was a humanitarian and a quiet social reformer who, under Hanlon's authority and tutelage, pioneered enduring changes to the delivery of dental services across Queensland.

Public Dental Services, Queensland: Alan Thomas Robertson.

Alan Thomas Robertson's career as Assistant Superintendent Brisbane Dental Hospital [1927-1945] and Acting Superintendent [1945-1946] spanned difficult times. In Victoria, against a backdrop of family tragedy and World War I, Robertson achieved distinguished academic and war-service records. Following the move to Queensland, Robertson either experienced or witnessed the Great Depression, World War II and affiliated paradigm shifts in government policy, dental education and the system of the delivery of dental services. Within this context, the actions of Hanlon, Vidgen and Hoole overshadowed Robertson's brief but meaningful contribution to the Australian Dental Association Queensland Branch, his diligent nineteen years of service to the Brisbane Dental Hospital [BDH] and its patients, his pioneering of general anesthesia and his perennial commitment to undergraduate and continuing dental education. Robertson's career was neither financially lucrative nor acclaimed. Despite his overt patriotism, leadership potential, academic profile and experience, seniority and service, Robertson's appointment as Superintendent at the BDH was only an interim measure. A brief career in an entrepreneurial private practice ended in professional isolation followed by tragedy. The authors present a revisionist interpretation of Robertson's career. This narrative conveys messages for human resource managers in both academe and health departments.

Public Dental Services, Queensland: Alfred James Hoole.

Historians have given limited attention to the genesis and evolution of public dental services across Queensland. The Secretary [Minister] for Home Affairs and later Premier, Edward 'Ned' Hanlon, was the political architect of accessible public hospital and dental facilities. However it was administrator and dentist, Alfred James Hoole, who orchestrated the practical details in the field. Hoole developed an extensive and successful government-administered, hospital-based dental service that, in terms of reach and workforce, was the contemporaneous leader in Australia. These clinics and affiliated school dental services delivered treatment to a disproportionately high percentage of socially disadvantaged and remotely domiciled Queenslanders. Hoole's career progression from Superintendent of the Brisbane Dental Hospital to Director of Dental Services is remarkable for its achievements, consequences, competency and duration. It originated from a limited secondary education and traversed the bitter political split of 1957, changes of government, minister and fiscal policy, health adversity and opposition from private practitioners. Hoole, an anointed leader, a ministerial confidant and a pragmatist, served on authorities and institutions that shaped the future of dental education and dental practice across the state. Forty-five years after his death, Hoole's contribution to the administration of public dental services in Queensland remains unrivalled.

Public Dental Services, Queensland: Edward "Ned" Michael Hanlon.

Within the Australian context, commentators often portray the Queensland system of delivery of public dental services as state-specific. A poorly explored dimension within this narrative is the contribution from Ned Hanlon. The authors use historical methods to address this inadequacy in the literature. The implementation of Hanlon's vision of a statewide government-administered dental service required dentists and infrastructure; both implicated legislative and administrative changes to dental education, hospital organization and local authority. In this way, there was an inexorable link between the genesis and evolution of the public hospital and public dental systems. Hanlon's motive was initially humanitarian but later implicated pragmatism, state development and Queensland chauvinism. Hanlon's actions were autocratic, authoritarian and populist. He pursued regionalism, states rights and state development. The post-depression and post-war timing, together with the ubiquity of dental caries and the nature of the dental profession, facilitated Hanlon's success. A nascent and emerging dental profession was powerless, out of touch with public thinking and hindered by the legislative framework that controlled dentists' registration. The Hanlon-dentist encounters became an intersection of conflicting values; idealism and tradition versus pragmatism and innovation. Whatever the perceived inadequacies in Hanlon's methods, his contribution to public dentistry across Queensland remains remarkable.

The Brisbane Dental Hospital Building: "The Palace" An Era Ends.

Constitutional, educational, humanitarian and political considerations underpinned the design and construction of the Brisbane Dental Hospital Building, often colloquially referred to as "The Palace." The Queensland Heritage Council's listing of the Brisbane Dental Hospital Building on The Queensland Heritage Register in 1999 confirms the cultural significance of Nowland's architectural signature, the historical importance of the Wickham Park precinct and prior students' connection with the building. Influences on decisions determining the location, grand design and timing of construction of the Brisbane Dental Hospital Building emanated from a far bigger and largely unrecorded political picture. The authors argue that the political context in two tiers of government, the timing and nature of the proposal, town planning issues, the exigencies of the caries epidemic and Forgan Smith's post-Depression economic reconstruction across Queensland underpinned the project. Hanlon's personal attributes and disdain for the autonomy of the dental profession, together with his desire to reform dental education and to establish statewide government-administred dental clinics, were also relevant. Accordingly, the BDHD portrayed aspiration, purpose, symbolism, and vision. This paper, essentially an integration of dental and mainstream history, assembles and analyzes hitherto scattered and unpublished evidence to fill a gap in the current literature.

Australian opinions on water fluoridation: do Queenslanders believe differently?

AIM: To test whether residents of Queensland differ from residents elsewhere in Australia with respect to support for water fluoridation. METHODS: Questionnaire data were obtained from an Australia-wide sample of 517 adults. The study occurred in 2008, shortly after the state government mandated fluoridation across Queensland. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in fluoridation support or in beliefs regarding the benefits and harms of fluoridation between Queensland and non-Queensland residents. However, respondents from Queensland were more resistant to changing their minds regarding their fluoridation stance, more distrusting of public health officials, and more supportive of decisions to introduce fluoridation being made by the people via a referendum. After controlling for potentially confounding variables, Queenslanders demonstrated significantly more support for water fluoridation than non-Queenslanders. CONCLUSIONS: Perceived Queensland characteristics, which political scientists have used to explain aberrant political behavior or public policy, were not relevant to the longstanding pre-2009 disparity in water fluoridation coverage between Queensland and the rest of Australia. The findings of this investigation do not support the assumption that Queenslanders are more opposed to fluoridation than residents elsewhere in Australia.