Limberg, Aleksandr Karlovich

Born Nov. 14 (26), 1856, in the small town of Teve, in the present-day Estonian SSR; died Feb. 16 (Mar. 1), 1906, in St. Petersburg. First Russian professor of stomatology.

Limberg graduated from the Medical and Surgical Academy in 1881. In 1900 he became head of the first subdepartment of dental diseases in Russia, under the auspices of the St. Petersburg Women’s Medical Institute. In 1883 he founded the St. Petersburg Society of Dentists and Physicians Practicing Dentistry. In 1884 he proposed that higher education be obligatory for dental physicians and that dentistry be accorded a status equal to that of the other medical specialties. Limberg played a major role as a founder of pediatric stomatology in Russia. He was the first in the world to advocate preventive dental care.