Britain's first community orthodontic scheme: for the children of Heston and Isleworth.

Orthodontics is the correction of irregularities of the teeth and jaws. Although frequently thought to be a modern concept, orthodontics was being taught in the United Kingdom by at least 1880.1 At that time, Oakley Coles was lecturing on congenital deformities to students at London's National Dental Hospital (later to become the dental department of University College Hospital) and its associated dental school, the Metropolitan School of Dental Science. His book on deformities of the mouth,2 which included accounts of the orthodontic treatment of cleft palate cases, was published in 1870; but Joseph Fox's classical treatise, The natural history ofthe human teeth published in 1803, was the first book in England to include explicit directions for correcting dental irregularities. However, Pierre Fauchard had described and illustrated various appliances for the treatment of irregularities of the teeth in 1728, in his book Chirurgien dentiste. The theme of aetiology and treatment of irregular teeth was taken up by a number of mid-nineteenth-century dentists. So keen was interest in the subject that in 1907 eleven enthusiasts founded the British Society for the Study of Orthodontia (BSSO).3 However, one of their members pointed out the anomaly of mixing Greek words with a Latin ending, so orthodontia was replaced by orthodontics. It was in the same year that the forerunner of the UK school dental service came into existence, George Cunningham's famous Cambridge Dental Institute for children, opening in Cambridge as a result of a private benefaction.4 The development of such clinics is not surprising: gross oral pain and sepsis was found in the nation's children; and many potential recruits to the forces were rejected because