John Gennings Curtis Adams

John Gennings Curtis Adams (16 March 1839 – 21 May 1922) was a Canadian farmer, dentist, and reformer who is credited as being Canada's "father of dental public health". Over his career, he had operated a free-of-charge dental clinic for Toronto's poor, served as the first dentist of record at the Hospital for Sick Children, and lobbied the City of Toronto to implement routine dental exams of schoolchildren, as well as to operate the first free public dental clinic in Canada.

A firm believer in the importance of oral health in children, Adams devoted his career to caring for the often neglected teeth of school children. He wrote a paper about the dire state of dental care in children, and lobbied his peers and the municipal government to take action. After his own free dental clinic was shut down by the city due to unpaid taxes, Adams became a dental missionary, travelling around the world to treat the poor and needy. His lobbying efforts paid off, as the Toronto Board of Education began inspecting the teeth of schoolchildren in 1911, and the city opened its own free dental clinic two years later.

Early life and education Adams was born in Adamsville, Upper Canada, on 16 March 1839, the son of the Rev. Ezra Adams, who was one of the first settlers of Adamsville, and his wife, Amy Edmonds. At the age of five, Adams enrolled on the temperance pledge and committed himself to being a lifelong teetotaler. When Adams was nine, his family moved from Adamsville to a homestead near the township of Drayton. Adams farmed on the homestead in his youth.

On 18 December 1861, Adams married Sarah Ann Fawcett. Both of them believed that God had called them when they were younger to perform philanthropic work for the poor. On 11 May 1870, Adams and his family moved from Drayton to Toronto, believing that he needed to provide dental hospital care for the poor. In Toronto, he studied dentistry under his brother, William Case Adams. Adams received his LDS certification from the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario in 1874, and opened his own private practice shortly thereafter. He restarted the free dental hospital, branding it as "Christ Mission Hall and Dental Institute" in 1875. Adams's private practice first operated on Gerrard Street, alongside the hospital, but then moved with the hospital to the intersection of Yonge Street and Bloor Street, in the city's Yorkville neighbourhood, before finally settling in the at the corner of Yonge and Elm Streets. The Hospital for Sick Children would open in 1875, and Adams would be made its first dentist of record in 1883.

A strong believer in the importance of oral health in children, Adams began a more aggressive campaign for children's dental care in the 1890s. Adams and his son, Dr. Ezra Herbert Adams, inspected the teeth of schoolchildren at the Victoria Street school, and found that 98 percent of children there had severely neglected teeth. Even with all the effort Adams was putting in, the hospital was still seeing little support among the public, and he had a column written in The Globe pleading parents to bring their children into the clinic to get their teeth examined. In his lobbying efforts to promote the health of schoolchildren, Adams made a statement to the premier of Ontario, George William Ross, in 1901 claiming that there were at least 1 million permanent teeth being destroyed in the mouths of schoolchildren.

Adams spent 10 years in retirement before dying on 21 May 1922, at the age of 83. He is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto

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