Contents - IADR/AADR

Dart, Teunis Ockerse (presently a life member of IADR), J. N. Noriskin, James T. Irving, and Alfred J.
Clement. Two members were honored by being designated Honorary Vice-Presidents of IADR—Geoffrey
Friel, 1936-37, and John C. Middleton Shaw, 1935-36 and 1937-44.
Correspondence indicates that there were long periods of dormancy during the life of the early
Johannesburg Section. After a planned scientific meeting in 1955 failed to materialize, the Section seemed to
"fade away and die" according to one correspondent. It disappeared from the Journal's roster of Sections in
1963.
Mervyn Shear of Johannesburg while in Chicago was invited by Isaac Schour to attend a meeting of the
Chicago Section while on a visit to the United States in 1963. Elected to honorary membership in the Chicago
Section, Mervyn Shear discussed with Dan Y. Burrill (then IADR President) an idea which had been on his
mind for a long time. This was the resuscitation of the Johannesburg Section or the establishment of a South
African Division. President Burrill was in wholehearted agreement. After his return to South Africa, Mervyn
Shear corresponded with Barnet M. Levy (who succeeded Dan Burrill as IADR President) and Arthur R.
Frechette, IADR Secretary-Treasurer, and finally he conferred with his fellow academicians in Johannesburg.
The outcome of all these discussions was the issuance in 1966 of 1200 invitations to attend a meeting on 22
September 1966 to constitute the new Division. Thirty-two South African IADR members were present at the
meeting; responses favoring the action were received from a number who were unable to attend. A. E. Dodds,
Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of the Witwatersrand, was elected President of the Division.
Mervyn Shear was elected Secretary and Councilor. Committee members were T. R. Barrowman, Cornelius
Dreyer, Johannes van Reenen, and John Lemmer.
The first scientific meeting of the South African Division was held at the Oral and Dental Hospital,
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg on Saturday, 16 September 1967. There were eighteen papers
read at that meeting. 21 The Guest of Honor was Ralph W. Phillips, who was then IADR President. (Photo in
chapter eleven & in JDR. 22 ) Colgate-Palmolive, Ltd., of South Africa, which made Professor Phillips' visit
possible, also awards an annual prize to a South African Division member under age thirty-five whose paper is
judged to be the best as presented at the annual Divisional meeting.
The Second Annual Meeting was held on 21 September 1968 in the city of Pretoria. There were fourteen
abstracts that year. 23 The next year the University of the Witwatersrand was again the site of the Division's
annual meeting. The Third Annual Meeting was on 20 September 1969. There were seventeen abstracts printed
in the Journal from this meeting. 24 The Fourth Annual Meeting was held in the city of Cape Town on 18-19
September 1970 with an all-time high of twenty-two abstracts. 25 By this time there were fifty-one regular
members and five associate members in the Division.
Presidents of the Division have been A. E. Dodds, 1966-68; Johannes van Reenen, 1968-70; and
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR DENTAL RESEARCH (IADR) – THE FIRST FIFTY YEAR HISTORY PAGE 145