Alfred Fones
Alfred Civilion Fones (1869 – March 15, 1938) was an American dentist from Bridgeport, Connecticut, who has been called the founder of the profession of dental hygiene, starting in 1906.In 1906[2] he trained his chairside assistant[3] (and his cousin), Irene M. Newman, to clean teeth and perform other preventive treatments on children, making her the world's first dental hygienist.For teaching aids, Fones took the many extracted teeth from his practice, mounted them in a modeling compound and painted plaster of Paris around the neck of each tooth to represent calculus and stains."[7] Newman's training seemed to help the children, so Fones launched a program to make preventive dental treatment available to schoolchildren in Bridgeport.[4] Many graduates went on to jobs with the Bridgeport school district, where they played a major part in reducing dental caries in students by 75 percent.