ARTIFICIAL TEETH

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 233, 25 May 1932, Page 8

ARTIFICIAL TEETH

AN ANCIENT ART BEGINNINGS OF DENTISTRY IN THE EARLY - AGES. EGYPTIANS AND ROMANS. "The first beginnings of dental art were undoubtedly the same as those of medicine," said Mr. W. B. Tennent in the course of an interesting ad- , dress on "Dentistry in the Early | Ages," to the Palmerston North Rotary Club. "It is evident that in primitive times, when the healing art was still in its rudimentary stage, no divisions could have existed in it. "Scientific medcine, whose first representative was Hippocrates, was preceded for centuries by popular and sacerdotal medicine. Necessity, instinct, and even mere chance, must have taught primitive man some simple curative processes and in this way popular medicine, which has been found in all races, took. its rise. In the early days of medicine the priests were the men undertook to trjeat the patients and if the patient re-. covered the priest's reputation as a healer in'creased, while if he did not it simply meant that the divinity was not willing to pardon. "In the course of the art of healing "•being handed down from generaton to generation, the priests became skilful and exp'erience taught them the remedies which had proved effective in different cases. Many of the early writings which have been handed down by the Egyptians contain references to dental maladies and though the Egyptians did not ignore the presence of blood in the tooth there is little or nothing to show that they gave surgical treatment." Ivory Dental Plates. "It is interesting to note," said Mr. Tennent, "that the Egyptians made artificial dentures out of ivory. To start with, the bloek of ivory was roughly shaped and covered with pow- . der. It was then tried in the mouth and ground down until, after a tedious proeess it was made to fit. These dentures were remarlcable pieces of work and a credit to the mn who made them. There was no mention of the Egyptians having gone in for gold-filling work, but they did do some . bridge work and specimens indicate that they appreciated the laws of stress in that the bridges were securely wired on to two teeth. !In this they were ahead of the Hindus." Mr. Tennent, speaking of the Hebrews said that they practised such strict rules of hygiene that there could have been little work for dentists as little reference to dental trouble was made in the early writings. The Chinese, on the other hand, distinguished the number of toothaches and prescribed various primitive remedies. One system of relieving pain, adopted by the Chinese, was to ipflict another pain in some other part of the body. The Greeks practised sacerdotal medicine and records show that it was not until 1200 B.C. that teeth were extracbed. The forceps, which were like the tongs to be found in a blacksmith's shop, were made of lead, suggesting that they could not have been used to pull away any but loose teeth. Etruscan Dentists. 5 The writngs of Hippocrates and Aristotle indicate that these men possessed a remarkable knowledge of d'ental anatomy, but early dentistry reached its peak among the Etruscans, an intelligent and industrious people, who, a sea-faring race, learned dentistry from the Egyptians and Greeks, but carried it to a much high>er degree of perfection. These people excelled in gold work and some of the crowns made by them compared quite favourably with the work done by modern dentists. In one bridge, the speaker mentioned, the primitive dentist had utilised the tooth of an ox. The Romans practised the art of dentistry before that of medicine, but it was in the time of the Romans that the extraction of teeth was relegated to blacksmiths and barbers because of the barbarous methods used by the doctors. The Romans wrote a good deal about dentistry and medicine and pyorrh'ea was not unknown to them. In the latter years of Rome's power the practice of medicine and dentistry fell ahnost entirely into the hands of the Greeks and Etruscans and, therefore, the treatment of dental diseases among the Romans was the same. Concluding his address, Mr. Tennent said that though the people suffered from the same dental disease 6000 years ago as they did to-day, the dentists to-day could claim to give better tre'atment than patients received in those early days.