Process of how western dentistry introduced to Korea was studied under the condition that traditional Korean dentistry exist already. In order to show this study, immigrants of Western and Japanese dentists and doctors activities and their affects in Korea must reviewed. Therefore, this article examined how Western and Japanese affect Korean dentistry.
The most representative traditional medical books of Korea are hyang yak gu guep bang, hyang yak gip sung bang and dong eui bo gam. These three books contain information regarding dental treatment. Traditional dentistry studies were based on the cause of diseases, which defined by five elements of the cosmic dual forces known as Yin and Yang. The theoretical background that showed in dong eui bo gam before hyang yak gip sung bang, and also dong eui bo gam was more convenient to apply in clinical practice because of the simple assortment that shows the nature of an illness.
In traditional dental treatment, main focus was on preserving the main body of the tooth rather than the localized affected part, which were treated with medicine depending on the symptoms. Also the target of treatment was reducing the pain only. Even when tooth extraction was needed, medication was used rather than using physical force. In don eui bo gam, filling method was not mentioned, which showed in both hyang yak gip sung bang and dong eui bo gam, due to the defectiveness of the material and imperfectness of the procedure. Main assumption of missing information in dong eui bo gam was a poor development of precesure and ineffectiveness. Also information on prosthodontic dentistry was not found in traditional Korean dentistry books. Prescription and medication used in traditional medical books need further study and clinical practice. Inflow of ser hak ser-western learning book from China was valuable example of a cross between Western and Eastern dentistry. In this time period, there were no division between doctors and dentists in western medical field. They came to Korea as missionaries, and they treated everyone from royal family to low-class people. They led social changes with the liberty, equality, and fraternity that based on Christianity. Western dentists were using local anesthetics for painless extraction of tooth. They also performed oral surgery for patients with deformed structure of the oral cavity, so that they could live their life with normal structured oral cavity. Prosthodontic dentistry was operated to Ko Jong emperor by American dentist James Souers. This operation started prosthodontic dentistry in Korea, which was not even possible through the traditional dentistry in Korea. David Edward Hahn was the one who had a benefit from prosthodontic dentistry. The proposal for building dental school by him was vanished because of the limitation of health and medical policy under colonized system.
Japanese dentists came to Korea as a part of the invader. Through the invasion Japanese dentistry system introduced to Korea, but it was for Japanese citizen only. Some of the Korean dentists learned Japanese dentistry system but the purpose of this learning system was for the surveillance and oppressive of Korean. Since Japan colonized the Korea, Korean dentists could not perform the practice freely and due to this matter dentistry system were stopped developed and the quality of practice went below Japanese dentistry system. When Japanese dentists came to Korea, many of them were low graded-dentist who seeks for nothing but profits instead of the quality service. So that for a while, people in Korea think of dentist as a low graded doctor. Jae-Sang clinic, which were built for Japanese citizen, was acknowledged as a first dentistry institution and the first person to open the private dental office was Noda Oyogi.
After western dentistry came to Korea, traditional Korean dentistry fades away. Painless extraction, oral surgery, almost perfect filling and prosthodontic treatment such as dentures may have momentarily excluded traditional dentistry from the path of learning. However, if medicine including dentistry has the goal of studying life, then the way for such pursuit can be found in many characteristics of traditional Korean dentistry. While this kind of study is in the air, we should seek for the positive elements from both Western and Eastern dentistry and develop them as a new way of practicing the dentistry for the future.
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