He was born in the Poznan region, which was then part of Prussia. In 1884, he moved to Berlin with his family. He became a dentist in 1900 and, after practicing dentistry for six months, pursued medical training from 1901 to 1905. He continued his education in the fields of internal medicine, infectious diseases, and surgery. However, in 1909, he returned to dentistry at the Dental Institute of the University of Munich. In 1912, he argued that children should learn about dental health in elementary school, but his proposal was not accepted.
In the 1930s, as the signs of war began to emerge, he developed preventive dentistry programs and mobile clinics for children throughout Germany. Continuing to rise in his profession, he was appointed full professor of Dentistry, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Bonn in 1923. Because he was Jewish, he was expelled from the university and spent nine months in prison and in a concentration camp.
Kantorowicz played a key role in the development of modern dentistry in Turkey. He extended the three-year dental program to four years, separated dentistry from surgery, and integrated the subspecialties of dentistry into the curriculum as distinct departments. Additionally, he assisted in the establishment of other faculties in Turkey and further contributed to education through the books he authored. In addition, he transferred aesthetic surgery (including cleft lip and palate) from the medical school curriculum to the dental curriculum and incorporated orthodontics into the curriculum.
Kantorowicz, who also served as the personal dentist to Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, worked in Turkey until his retirement in 1949. In 1950, he returned to the University of Bonn. He last visited Turkey in 1958, where he delivered a seminar on “Dental Caries Prophylaxis.” On February 17, 1962, he was awarded the 50th Anniversary Award for Education by the Bonn School of Medicine; however, he passed away shortly thereafter on March 6, 1962, at the age of 82.