Who is Harold Loe?
Jul 12, 2023This is one of the three questions I always ask my students. With the exception of periodontists or periodontal residents, almost no one knows who he is. I will cover the other two questions in future newsletters.
Harold Loe is considered by many to be the Father of Modern Periodontology. I was fortunate to have him as my Dean at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine which I attended in 1975.
In 1965, only 10 years earlier, Dr. Loe published his seminar paper, Experimental Gingivitis in Man in the Journal of Periodontology (LOE H, THEILADE E, JENSEN SB. EXPERIMENTAL GINGIVITIS IN MAN. J Periodontol (1930). 1965 May-Jun; 36:177-87) This was the first article to prove that gingivitis was directly caused by plaque. Dr Loe and his colleagues took 12 dentally healthy, gingivitis-free, dental students and asked them to suspend oral hygiene.
Within one week all 12 students developed gingivitis and bleeding gums. He reinstituted oral hygiene and gingiva returned to a state of health within 7 – 10 days.
He also performed a bacteriological assessment throughout the study. He was able to show that different types of bacteria were associated with disease than those associated with health.
What is amazing is that this experiment was performed only 50 years ago. Harold Loe was a visionary.
He was one of my most impactful educators. On our first day of dental school, he addressed forty of us freshmen, as doctors. He told us that we were to consider ourselves physicians of the oral cavity. We were required to take and pass Part I of the medical boards to enter our junior year of dental school.
We were also required to treat each of our patients comprehensively. We were taught to treat the patient with the disease, not the disease. My philosophy of care was shaped by my training and Dr Loe.
The concepts discussed in Treating People Not Patients were hatched during my years at UCONN.
If you are interested in doing a deeper dive into the principles of periodontal therapy and comprehensive treatment, I encourage you to check out our latest three-day program in Periodontal Mastery at NYU on November 1-3, 2023. https://www.sonickseminars.
