Chapin A. Harris

Chapin A. Harris
Chapin Aaron Harris
Born	6 May 1806 Pompey, N.Y.
Died	29 September 1860 Baltimore, Maryland
Nationality	American
Fields	dentistry
Known for	dentistry

Chapin Aaron Harris A.M., MD, D.D.S. (May 6, 1806 in Pompey, N.Y. – September 29, 1860 in Baltimore, Maryland) was an American physician and dentist and dentistry school founder.

At the age of 17 Harris studied medicine in Madison, Ohio, in the office of his brother, Dr. John Harris, who also tutored him in dentistry, a subject which become his main interest. He subsequently passed the Board of Medical Censors in 1824 and was licensed to practice medicine. He soon commenced practice in Greenfield, Ohio, where he remained for about one year, travelling to Bloomfield, Ohio, then Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1828, Dr. Harris turned to full-time dentistry, and by 1833 was a student of Dr. Horace H. Hayden located in Baltimore, Maryland. Licensed by the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, Harris conducted an itinerant dental practice throughout the South, before settling permanently in Baltimore in 1835.

Harris received the honorary M. D. degree from Washington Medical College at Baltimore, in which he was a professor in 1838. Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois, conferred an A.M. degree on him in 1842. His D.D.S. was obtained through membership of the American Society of Dental Surgery, and an honorary D.D.S. degree was conferred upon him by the Philadelphia Dental College in 1854.

Harris is considered one of the founding members of the profession of Dentistry in the United States of America, father of American dental science, and a pioneer of dental journalism. He has been inducted in the hall of fame of the Pierre Fauchard Academy.

As early as 1835 Harris became an active contributor to medical and periodical literature as one of the most vigorous and productive dental writers, causing him to be regarded as the founder of dental literature in the US. He was also a contributor to medical and periodical literature.

In 1840 he was the first to respond to the call of Dr. Horace H. Hayden to organize the American Society of Dental Surgeons (ASDS). At a meeting at the home of Solyman Brown BA, MA, MD,DDS, in New York, it was on his motion that the convention to organize a society "resolved that a National Society be formed." He was its first corresponding secretary and its president in 1844. After the disruption of the society in 1856 due to the dental amalgam controversy, he was one of the foremost organizers of its successor, the American Dental Convention, serving as its president in 1856–57. In 1859, a year before his death, another national dental organization, the American Dental Association, was established during a meeting in Niagara, New York. Before 1861 dentists were participant in both dental organizations, which promoted education and research in all aspects of dentistry, including dental materials and remained active throughout the American Civil War (1861–1865). However, during the war, Southern dentists withdrew from them and, in 1869 established the Southern Dental Association. The Southern Dental Association merged with the ADA in 1897 to form the National Dental Association (NDA). The NDA was renamed the American Dental Association (ADA) in 1922.