[Fifty years of dissertations by dentists]

From 1947 the faculties of dentistry of the Dutch universities are entitled to grant Ph.D. grades for dental theses. In the fifty years that have elapsed since, about 500 dentists defended their thesis; the vast majority (6/7) during the second half of the period. This article describes the first thesis (dating from 1956-1973) of each of the five dental faculties that have existed in the Netherlands, followed by a short analysis of the entire group of 500 dissertations. In recent years dissertations are hardly ever written in Dutch, English taking over nearly entirely. Subjects in the field of social dentistry seem to loose foot. The increase in numbers of dental dissertations is stagnating (at a level of 20-30/year), just as is the case for medical theses (600-700/year).