The History of Myofunctional Orthodontics - Part 1: The Beginning and the Separation

Myofunctional therapy may seem like a relatively foreign concept to recent graduates, but the reality is it has been practiced for a hundred years and has endured a largely turbulent history over the last century. In 1870, George Catlin released a book called 'Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life' that documented his observations of more than 150 Native American tribes and his conclusion that breathing correctly was the source of their extraordinary health. Edward Angle, renowned as "the father of modern orthodontics", took a strong interest in Catlin's ideas, which influenced his own research on malocclusion and its myofunctional causes. However, two graduates of Angle's School of Orthodontia, Raymond Begg and Charles Tweed, had very different views about orthodontics. They favoured an extraction-based approach and advocated for it to become the standard in orthodontics. The split had begun.