Key Points
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Invites a comparison between 19th- and 21st-century patterns of dental care.
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Provides an insight into the reasons for a successful long-term professional relationship.
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Supplies a vehicle for ethical discussion about professional confidentiality.
Abstract
This paper describes the relationship between John Ruskin [1819-1900] the Victorian artist, writer, and critic, and Alfred James Woodhouse [1824-1906], the dentist who cared for him from 1866 to 1883. Although Ruskin was perhaps not quite as eccentric as a recent television series has portrayed him, he was certainly not conventional, and the relationship with his dentist was also not entirely conventional.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Professor Michael Wheeler for first drawing my attention to the Woodhouse letters, and to him, Professor Stephen Wildman of Lancaster University, Dr Malcolm Hardman of Warwick University, and Dr Dearden for information and advice on the preparation of the paper. Thanks are also due to Helen Nield at the BDA Information Centre and Kay Walters, Librarian of the Athenaeum. I thank the British Dental Association, the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, The National Portrait Gallery London, the Ruskin Foundation, the Ruskin Library and Research Centre Lancaster University, and Yale University Press for permissions.
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Bishop, M. Eminent Victorian dentistry. 1. John Ruskin and the patient experience of Victorian dentistry. Ruskin's dentist, Alfred James Woodhouse. Br Dent J 210, 179–182 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2011.91
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2011.91
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