Alumni Gazette

Last summer, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine gave special recognition to John Manhold ’41, who returned to the school on the 70th anniversary of his graduation. Witness to a long stretch of the history of modern dentistry, Manhold shared many of his observations in an essay in the summer 2014 edition of the Harvard Dental Bulletin.

Manhold spent much of his career as a dental reformer. A pioneer in the now established subspecialty of psychosomatic, or biobehavioral, dentistry, he recalled early, skeptical reactions to his first studies.

He persevered, publishing a textbook, Introductory Psychosomatic Dentistry, in 1956. “Dentistry was hesitant to accept my studies, while medicine and psychiatry embraced them,” Manhold says. He later became a fellow in the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine as well as president of the group.

After dental school, he returned to Rochester for a fellowship in pathology. He worked with the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s founding dean, George Whipple, briefly, before serving in World War II.

After the war, he taught at Tufts and then at Washington University. In the mid-1950s, he left St. Louis for New Jersey, to become one of the first faculty members at the new Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry. For 31 years, he remained at the school, now the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, helping establish and leading its pathology department and serving as dean.

At Rutgers, Manhold pressed for greater integration of dental and medical education. “Numerous physical problems provide early indicative symptomatology in the oral cavity. If a dental practitioner is alert and knowledgeable, he or she is in a prime position to discern a budding medical problem,” he says.

Dental and medical education have indeed grown more integrated over the years. Says Eli Eliav, director of the Eastman Institute for Oral Health, “The two professions use similar bases of knowledge and the separation between them is quickly shrinking.” Faculty and residents at the Eastman Institute work closely with multiple departments within the Medical Center.

Manhold says he’s “gratified” by the changes in modern dentistry. “Recognition by one’s peers always is most heartwarming,” he adds, “and even more so when you have been away from the profession for some time.”

—Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)