Albert Miles

Albert Edward William ('Loma') Miles (16 Jan 1912 – 16 Mar 2008) was a British academic dentist.[1] He was also Professor of Dental Surgery and Pathology at London Hospital Medical College Dental School between 1950 and 1976, published a number of significant books in the field of academic dentistry, and developed a technique for assessing a subject's age from the extent of wear on the teeth.

Albert Miles
Born Albert Miles
1912
Died 2008 (aged 95–96)
Nationality British
Occupation Academic Dentist

Early life

Miles was born in London[2] in 1912, before graduating in both medicine and dentistry from London's Royal Dental Hospital.[2] His nickname of 'Loma' is said to have been given to at this time, after he was the only member of his histopathology class to correctly diagnose a malignant myeloma.[2]

Academic career

Between 1947-1951, Miles was the scientific editor of the British Dental Journal. He was honorary curator of the Royal College of Surgeons' odontological collection from 1955 to 1989,[1] where he is said to have improved the collection's usefulness as a research resource.[2]

However, his main appointment was as Professor of dental surgery and pathology at the London hospital medical college dental school, a role he held from 1950 to 1976. An advocate of an interdisciplinary approach to research, he recruited staff from a wide variety of fields, such as zoologists, physicists, pathologists, geneticists, dentists and epidemiologists.[2] He has been described by one obituarist as 'a pillar of scientific rigour and a beacon for young researchers' at a time when there was relatively little good research on dental subjects.

Late career

Miles officially retired from his London Professorship in 1976, but taught anatomy for several years thereafter.[2] Starting in the 1980s, he carried out research on the remains of an eventual total of 416 individuals exhumed from the chapel and burial mound on the island of Ensay in the Outer Hebrides.[1]

Personal life

Throughout his life, Miles was a socialist. He was a 'vociferous' opponent of the 2003 Iraq War. He survived his long-term partner, Diana, by three years.[1]

Legacy

Miles developed a method of assessing the age of a subject based on the extent to which teeth had been worn down by use. This 'Miles Method', although developed in the 1960s, was still in wide use in the 1990s.[3] He also claimed to have performed the first gingivectomy in the UK.[2]

He published hundreds of articles and other pieces of research,[2] but one obituarist has listed Miles' most significant works as

  • Structural and Chemical Organisation of Teeth (1967)
  • Teeth and Their Origins (1972)[4]
  • Variations and Diseases of the Teeth in Animals (1990, with Caroline Grigson)[5]

His final work, a book on the early history of the Royal Army Medical Corps was published posthumously, in 2009.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Arnott, Deborah; Sheiham, Aubrey (24 Apr 2008). "Obituary: Loma Miles". The Guardian Newspaper. Retrieved 6 Feb 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Johnson, Newell (24 May 2008). "Loma Miles". The British Dental Journal. Retrieved 6 Feb 2015.
  3. ↑ Santini, A; Land, M (December 1990). "The accuracy of simple ordinal scoring of tooth attrition in age assessment". Forensic Sci Int. 48: 175–84. doi:10.1016/0379-0738(90)90110-k. PMID 2283140.
  4. ↑ Albert Edward William Miles (January 1972). Teeth and Their Origins. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-914130-2.
  5. ↑ A. E. W. Miles; Caroline Grigson (30 October 2003). Colyer's Variations and Diseases of the Teeth of Animals. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-54407-8.
  6. ↑ A. E. W. Miles (2009). The Accidental Birth of Military Medicine: The Origins of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Civic Books. ISBN 978-1-904104-95-7.
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