James Roy Blayney was born on July 28, 1889 in Alexis, Illinois. He attended Knox College and received his D.D.S. in 1913 from Northwestern University Dental School. Blayney received a B.S. from the Lewis Institute (the present Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1924 and an S.M. in Pathology from the University of Chicago in 1928.
From 1913 to 1919 Blayney practiced dentistry in Tallula, Illinois. He became an Instructor at the University of Illinois College of Dentistry, Chicago in 1918. He later became Associate Professor (1923) and Professor (1931).
Blayney was the founding director and Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago’s Zoller Dental Clinic, which was established in 1936. He conducted the 15-year experiment (1946-61) in the Chicago suburbs of Oak Park and Evanston that demonstrated the cavity-fighting ability of fluoride in drinking water and led to the widespread fluoridation of municipal water supplies. It is believed to be the largest dental study ever attempted, with a total of 38,000 dental examinations.
Blayney retired from the University faculty in 1954.
Blayney was a past president of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) and the Illinois State Dental Society. He received the Howard Ricketts Prize in 1928 and the Callahan Award in 1946. In 1965 he received the H. Trendley Dean Fluoridation award from the IADR. He wrote over 75 articles as well as a textbook, Dental Pharmacology and Therapeutics (1934).
Blayney married Alice E. Crain. She died in 1964.
James Roy Blayney died on November 22, 1980 in Evanston, Illinois.
From the guide to the Blayney, James Roy. Papers, 1948-1962, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)
