A Toronto-trained dentist and the Chengdu clinic that became a dental school

Ashley Woodward Lindsay was born in Quebec in 1884 and studied at the Royal College of Dental Surgeons in Toronto ^[1]. China's National Health Commission says he graduated in 1906 and left Canada for Chengdu in the autumn of 1907 with his newly married wife ^[2]. Sichuan University's archives say he wanted only to work as a dentist in western China and relieve people there of oral disease ^[1]. With help from Dr. Omar L. Kilborn, the couple opened a dental clinic on Sishengci Street, marking the start of modern dentistry in Chengdu ^[2].

The University of Toronto places Lindsay in Chengdu in 1908 and says Dr. John E. Thompson joined him the following year; together they founded the Dentistry Department at West China Union University's medical faculty in 1911 ^[3]. The same account says the medical faculty established a department of Dentistry in 1917, and that by 1921 it had become the College of Dentistry ^[3]. China's National Health Commission says Lindsay established the Dentistry Department in 1917, while the hospital's history dates the establishment of West China Union University's dental college to that year ^[2][4].

His wife, A. T. Lindsay, founded the university's library and usually taught young dentists English at her home three mornings a week ^[1]. The stomatology hospital lists Lindsay as its first head, from 1907 to 1950 ^[5].