[Preventive dentistry--actually more than 100 years old].

The purpose of this study was to show that an intensified prevention in dentistry is not new to the 20th Century, but rather that man for more than 100 years considered the positive influence of prophylaxis on oral health to be extremely important. Three publications from Süersen (1867), Detzner (1830) and Jantzen (1865) document impressively that nothing has changed today with regard to the actuality of the questions and problems they raised. As one reviews these studies, one is astonished what profound knowledge all three authors already had regarding the etiology, origin, and consequences of caries and gingival disease.