Guest Editorial: I have a dream

Throughout centuries, oral health has been entrusted to surgeons, barbers, itinerant charlatans, doctors, and finally to dentists, thus varying from culture to culture. This abrupt transition of a part of the human body, regarding treatment and training, is explained through several aspects. There is the accessibility of the oral cavity and the relative harmlessness of minor surgical operations, especially dental extractions, that take place according to the partticular immunologic condition. However, the epidemic of dental caries was, above all, the element that rendered a briefer training indispensable, in order to meet the huge needs emerging suddenly at the beginning of the 20th century in a number of countries, due to industrialization.