As RCSI’s new School of Dentistry opens this week, we thought we’d look back at its predecessor. RCSI has the distinction of creating the first Professorship in Dental Surgery in Ireland or Britain. This was in 1884, when the inaugural appointee was Richard Theodore Stack (1848 – 1909). Curiously, Stack never intended to be a dentist. He had studied medicine at Trinity College, coming first in his class and winning various scholarships, and seemed destined for a glittering medical career – until, that is, a bout of rheumatic fever left him so deaf, at the age of 26, that he could no longer use a stethoscope. He switched his focus, graduating in dentistry from Harvard University in 1877. For the rest of his life, he actively disliked being called ‘Doctor’ – his door-plate, visiting cards and book stamp all read ‘Dentist Stack'. Dentist Richard Theodore Stack by Walter Osborne (courtesy of the British Dental Association Museum). Returning to...