Edward H. Angle and the motives behind his school of orthodontia

Despite the century that has passed since Dr. Edward Hartley Angle (1855-1930) launched a new dental specialty, his personal vision of why he believed orthodontics needed to separate from dentistry has remained somewhat obscure. This study seeks to provide more clarity to this question. Angle followed a very distinct pattern of secession or separation throughout his life, a pattern which ended up benefitting the orthodontic specialty's elevation as an independent and advanced science within dentistry. Even so, it was ultimately those things he disliked about the academic community, the very community within which dentistry flourished, that finally moved him to force the issue by separating himself from that community. The separation of orthodontics from dentistry provided a singular environment in which orthodontics could bear fruit that the average patient could benefit from, thus providing the groundwork for accelerated orthodontic developments.