Clifford Ballard (26 June 1910 – 16 July 1997) was a British

orthodontist Orthodontics (also referred to as orthodontia) is a dentistry specialty that addresses the diagnosis, prevention, management, and correction of mal-positioned teeth and jaws, as well as misaligned bite patterns. It may also address the modificati ...

. He became England's first Professor of Orthodontics in 1956. He served as the President of BSSO in 1957.

Life

He attended

Royal Dental Hospital The Royal Dental Hospital was a dental hospital in Leicester Square, London, which operated from 1858 until 1985. In 1859, it opened the London School of Dental Surgery, later renamed to the Royal Dental Hospital of London School of Dental Surge ...

in 1934. He then studied medicine at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School and graduated from there in 1940. He became an orthodontist in Middlesex County the same year. In 1948, he joined the Institute of Dental Surgery at the

Eastman Dental Hospital The Eastman Dental Hospital was based on Gray's Inn Road until it co-located with the University College London ear, nose, throat, balance and hearing services on Huntley Street, London, as the Royal National ENT and Eastman Dental Hospitals in ...

as Head of the Orthodontic Department. Ballard's interest in the field pertained to the respiratory function and the effects of orofacial musculature on

malocclusion In orthodontics, a malocclusion is a misalignment or incorrect relation between the teeth of the upper and lower dental arches when they approach each other as the jaws close. The English-language term dates from 1864; Edward Angle (1855–1 ...

s. During his stay at the Eastman Hospital, he organized a two-day symposium for the orthodontists in the country. In 1961. With the help of John Hovell he formed the Consultant Orthodontists Group (COG). He married Muriel Burling in 1937 and had two children, a son and a daughter.

Ballard Conversion Tracing

Ballard described a method for studying the jaw relationship in the Antero-Posterior direction in 1951. This method used the axial inclination of the

incisor teeth Incisors (from Latin ''incidere'', "to cut") are the front teeth present in most mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and on the mandible below. Humans have a total of eight (two on each side, top and bottom). Opossums have 18, wher ...

to study the relationship. This method removes any influence of soft tissues and dental compensation and permits an adjustment to the inclination of the maxillary and

mandibular In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...

incisors to their normal value in respect to maxillary and mandibular planes. This method uses incisor overjet as the indicator of the relative position of the maxilla to the mandible. Thus the overjet describes the skeletal discrepancy.

Recognition

* BSSO - President (1957) * Colyer Gold Medal presented by Royal Dental Surgeon

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballard, Cliff 1910 births 1997 deaths Orthodontists 20th-century British dentists