Although the name of Wilma Elizabeth Motley might not resonate with most people, her life's work certainly will.
Motley, who died in Baltimore last month at the age of 92, was recognized worldwide as an authority in the field of dental hygiene and its history.
Between 1972 and 1989, Motley published three books on the philosophy, ethics, jurisprudence and history of dental hygiene.
Motley's efforts in the 1970s resulted in the recognition and accreditation of dental hygiene programs by the American Dental Association.
"She was a pioneer and fought to get hygienists recognized by the American Dental Association and that earned her honorary membership in the American Dental Association. She is the only hygienist to receive such an honor," said her longtime friend Dr. H. Berton McCauley, a retired dentist and former director of the Baltimore Health Department's dental care program, with whom she lived the last six years of her life.
Motley was a 1933 graduate of the dental hygiene program at the University of Southern California's School of Dentistry, and after her 1934 marriage to William G. Motley, a dentist, she worked for 30 years in his Sherman Oaks, Calif., practice. He died in 1996.
Motley was interested in the origins of her profession and spent years researching the subject. Her research resulted in the publication of Ethics, Jurisprudence and History for the Dental Hygienist and a History of the American Dental Hygienist's Association.
"The overwhelming need for dental care which we see every day might cause us to believe that concern for the health and care of the mouth and teeth is a relatively new concept in our culture," she wrote.
"On the contrary, these concerns, in greater or lesser degree, have been present since man evolved. Chimpanzees have been observed using a straw as a toothpick, presumably to alleviate an uncomfortable feeling of food impacted between the teeth, and it is reasonable to imagine that Neanderthal man did the same thing with a thorn, quill or stick of some kind," she wrote in Ethics, Jurisprudence and History for the Dental Hygienist, which is still a standard textbook in dental schools.
Her research showed that by 10,000 B.C., humans in Europe who suffered from dental problems remedied the situation simply by knocking out their teeth; by 5,000 B.C., man had embarked on the art of surgery on the skull.
