Heaven help you if you got a toothache in the past centuries, when the practice of dentistry was less advanced. The Egyptians would likely just pull out the tooth — a procedure likely none too pleasant (it should be noted that the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest written set of laws ever, prescribed dental extraction as a form of punishment.) That was in fact standard practice until well into the 17th century, when French dentists begin to form the earliest foundations of modern dentistry. In the United States most dentists started out as apprentices, the subject never considered fit for an academic discipline, until Harvard formed one.

On this day, July 17, in 1867, the Harvard School of Dentistry, the first such school in the U.S. opened, in Boston.

The first dean of the school was Dr. Nathan Cooley Keep, a lifelong practitioner of dentistry and a tireless advocate of promoting it as an academic subject. Keep admitted to the program everyone who qualified, regardless of race, as a contemporary account noted: “A colored dentist who had applied unsuccessfully to several dental schools for instruction, came to Boston, called upon Dean Nathan Cooley Keep, MD, DDS, and asked to be received. Upon Keep’s recommendation the School Faculty decided that Harvard University should consider right and justice above expediency and should know no distinction of nativity or color in admitting students.”