Namibian Dental Association
Your smile is our priority
The History of Dentistry
Sir John Tomes (1815 - 1895)
In England, the 1878 British Dentists Act and 1879 Dentists Register limited the title of "dentist" and "dental surgeon" to qualified and registered practitioners. The practice of dentistry in the United Kingdom became fully regulated with the 1921 Dentists Act, which required the registration of anyone practicing dentistry. The British Dental Association, formed in 1880 with Sir John Tomes as president, played a major role in
prosecuting dentists practicing illegally.
St Apollonia the Patron Saint of Dentistry
Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (247–265), relates the sufferings of his people: “At that time Apollonia was held in high esteem. These men seized her also and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of fagots and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words. Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the fire and was burned to death."
St Apollonia is popularly invoked against the toothache because of the torments she had to endure. She is represented in art with pincers
in which a tooth is held.
First Dentition, 1841 - page 1
A treatise on first dentition, and the frequently serious disorders which depend upon it. By M. Baumes. First published by the Royal Society of Medicine of Paris in the year 1783. Translated from the French, for the American Journal of Dental Science, by Thomas E. Bond, Jr.:
1. The life of man is distinguished by certain periods, during which, the body acquires a new degree of perfection by the development of its organs, and of the functions which belong to them. These periods are characterized by certain phenomena which depend upon the nature of the developing organ, and the excellence of the functions that pertain to it. When regular, they result in real increase and perfection: when irregular, they become the cause of suffering and even of death. When regular, they shew that nature exercises free command over the body she has formed, for upon this they depend: when irregular, they manifest errors of this same nature counteracted by our consitution and by other physical causes under the influence of which we live.
2. The acquisition of the Teeth is the first of these developments. It takes place at a time when the body is excessively excitable; when pain produces severe effects, and when the irritation consequent upon the local development, largely influences the rest of the system. Dentition, therefore, is a very important epoch in the history of man, and it is extremely useful to examine it in all its different aspects. In it may often be found the cause of the death of a great number of infants, and the foundation of certain serious disorders which
are subsequently developed, or which remain for life as taints in the constitution.
Toothbrush
Natural bristle brushes were invented by the ancient Chinese who made toothbrushes with bristles from the necks of cold climate pigs. French dentists were the first Europeans to promote the use of toothbrushes in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
William Addis of England is credited with creating the first mass-produced toothbrush in 1780. In 1770 he had been placed in jail for causing a riot. While in prison, he decided that the method for teeth brushing of the time – rubbing a rag on one's teeth with soot and salt – could be improved. So he took a small animal bone, drilled small holes in it, obtained some bristles from a guard, tied them in tufts, then passed the bristles through the holes on the bone and glued them. After his spell in jail he created the first mass-produced toothbrush and soon became very wealthy. He died in the year 1808 and left the business to his eldest son, William II.
Natural bristles (from animal hair) were replaced by synthetic fibers, usually nylon, by Du Pont in 1938. The first nylon bristle toothbrush, made with nylon yarn, went on sale on February 24, 1938. The Florence Manufacturing Company was also the first to sell toothbrushes packaged in boxes.
The first electric toothbrush was produced and developed in Switzerland during 1939. The first American electrical toothbrush for home use, the Broxodent, was introduced by the Bristol-Myers Company at the centennial of the American Dental Association in 1959.
Hard to believe, but most Americans did not brush their teeth until Army soldiers brought their enforced habits of tooth brushing back home after World War II.
Novocain - Alfred Einhorn
There is historical evidence that the ancient Chinese used acupuncture around 2700 BC to treat the pain associated with tooth decay. The first local anesthetic used in dentistry was Cocaine, introduced as an anesthetic by Carl Koller (1857-1944) in 1884. Researchers soon began working on a non-addictive substitute for Cocaine, and as a result German Chemist, Alfred Einhorn introduced Novocain in 1905. Alfred Einhorn was researching an easy-to-use and safe local anesthesia to use on soldiers during wartime. He refined the chemical procaine until it was more effective, and named the new product Novocain. Novocain never became popular for military use; however, it did become popular as an anesthetic among dentists. In 1846, Dr. William Morton, a Massachusetts dentist, was the first dentist to use anesthesia for tooth extraction.
Toothpaste, Dental floss & Toothpicks
Toothpaste was used as long ago as 500 BC in both China and India; however, modern toothpastes were developed only in the 1800's. In 1824, a dentist named Peabody was the first person to add soap to toothpaste. John Harris first added chalk as an ingredient to toothpaste in the 1850's. In 1873, Colgate mass-produced the first toothpaste in a jar. In 1892, Dr. Washington Sheffield of Connecticut manufactured toothpaste into a collapsible tube. Sheffield's toothpaste was called Dr. Sheffield's Creme Dentifrice. In 1896, Colgate Dental Cream was packaged in collapsible tubes imitating Sheffield. Advancements in synthetic detergents made after WW II allowed for the replacement of the soap used in toothpaste with emulsifying agents such as sodium lauryl sulphate and sodium ricinoleate. A few years later, Colgate started to add fluoride to toothpaste.
Dental floss is an ancient invention. Researchers have found dental floss and toothpick grooves in the teeth of prehistoric humans. Levi Spear Parmly (1790-1859), a New Orleans dentist is credited as being the inventor of modern dental floss (or maybe the term re-inventor would be more accurate). Parmly promoted teeth flossing with a piece of silk thread in 1815. In 1882, the Codman and Shurtleft Company of Randolph, Massachusetts started to mass-produce unwaxed silk floss for commercial home use. The Johnson and Johnson Company of New Brunswick, New Jersey were the first to patent dental floss in 1898. Dr. Charles C. Bass developed nylon floss as a replacement for silk floss during WW II. Dr. Bass was also responsible for making teeth flossing an important part of dental hygiene.
A character is depicted using dental floss in James Joyce's famous novel Ulysses (serialised 1918-1920) - an early mention of the practice of flossing in literary fiction.
Toothpicks have been around longer than our species. Skulls of Neanderthals, as well as of Homo sapiens, have shown clear signs of having teeth that were picked with a tool. Toothpicks are the oldest instruments for dental cleaning and are well-known in all cultures. Before the toothbrush was invented, one cleaned one's teeth with hard and soft dental woods. Toothpicks made of bronze have been found as burial objects in prehistoric graves in Northern Italy and in the East Alps. It was also well-known in Mesopotamia.
There are delicate, artistic examples of toothpicks made of silver in antiquity, as well as from mastic wood by the Romans. In the 17th century toothpicks were luxury objects similar to jewellery items. They were formed from precious metal and set with expensive stones. Frequently they were artistically stylized and enameled.
The first modern toothpick-manufacturing machine was patented in 1872, by Silas Noble and J. P. Cooley. Nowadays other means of dental hygiene like dental floss and toothbrushes are preferred but the usefulness of the toothpick is apparent in the fact that the plastic version of this
device is a firm component of the Swiss Army knife.
History of Orthodontics
Although teeth straightening and extraction to improve alignment of remaining teeth has been practiced since early times, orthodontics as a science of its own did not really exits until the 1880's. The history of dental braces or the science of orthodontics is very complex. Many different inventors helped to create braces, as we know them today.
In 1728, Pierre Fauchard published a book called the "The Surgeon Dentist" with an entire chapter on ways to straighten teeth. In 1957, the French dentist Bourdet wrote a book called "The Dentist's Art". It also had a chapter on tooth alignment and using appliances in the mouth. These books were the first important references to the new dental science of orthodontics.
Historians claim that two different men deserve the title of being called "The Father of Orthodontics". One man was Norman W. Kingsley, a dentist, writer, artist, and sculptor, who wrote his "Treatise on Oral Deformities" in 1880. What Kingsley wrote influenced the new dental science greatly. The second man who deserves credit was a dentist named J. N. Farrar who wrote two volumes entitled "A Treatise on the Irregularities of the Teeth and Their Corrections". Farrar was very good at designing brace appliances, and he was the first to suggest the use of mild force at timed intervals to move teeth.
Edward H. Angle (1855-1930) devised the first simple classification system for malocclusions, which is still in use today. His classification system was a way for dentists to describe how crooked teeth are, what way teeth are pointing, and how teeth fit together. In 1901, Angle started the first school of orthodontics.
Eugene Solomon Talbot (1847-1924) was the first person to use X-rays for orthodontic diagnosis. Calvin S. Case was the first person to use rubber elastics with braces.
Amalgam, history of the debate about mercury, the amalgam wars & the amalgam toxicity controversy
Amalgam is a commonly used dental filling that has been used for over 150 years. It is a mixture of mercury with at least one other metal. Currently, dental amalgams are composed of 43% to 54% mercury; the remaining powder is made up of mainly silver (~20-35%) and some tin, copper (~10%), and zinc (~2%). Amalgam has many advantages over other restorative material, such as low cost, ease of application, strength, durability, and bacteriostatic effects. Its main disadvantage is toxicity. The use of amalgam has declined in recent years due to a lingering but controversial concern about the detrimental health effects from the low levels of mercury released from amalgam. There are also environmental concerns about mercury emissions from waste amalgam and cremation of deceased individuals.
Prior to amalgam, dentists restored teeth using filling material such as stone chips, resin, cork, turpentine, gum, lead and gold leaf, among other metals. In 1603 a German named Tobias Dorn Kreilius described a process for creating an amalgam filling by dissolving copper sulfide with strong acids, adding mercury, bringing to a boil, and then pouring onto the teeth. In France D'Arcet's Mineral Cement was popular, but it had to be boiled into a liquid before being poured on patients' teeth. Louis Regnart added mercury to the mixture, lowering the temperature required significantly, and for this became known as the "Father of Amalgam". Amalgam was placed by August Taveau in France early as 1826. Gold, platina, silver, tin, lead, and alloys of these substances were highly preferred to amalgam around the 1840's. Amalgam was controversial; one of the first dental textbooks by the leading US dental researcher of the time called it "the most pernicious material that has ever been employed for filling teeth". Although the textbook admitted that amalgam had certain benefits, the book strongly discouraged its use, stating that "the mercury is the mischievous ingredient".
The Crawcour brothers, two Frenchmen, brought amalgam to the United States in 1833, and in 1844 it was reported that fifty percent of all dental restorations placed in upstate New York consisted of amalgam. Prior to the amalgam introduced by them, the two main options were having teeth completely removed, or a long appointment before having hot gold hammered into the tooth. The Crawcour bothers avoided calling attention to the mercury in their "silver" fillings, calling them "mineral succedaneum" or "royal mineral succedaneum", which the public associated with gold. In 1843 the American Society of Dental Surgeons (ASDS), the only US dental association at the time, declared the use of dental amalgam to be malpractice and forced all of its members to sign a pledge to abstain from using it. This was the beginning of what are known as the ‘amalgam wars’. The ASDS ran the Crawcour brothers out of the country. Their position against amalgam led to the decline of the ASDS, as dental amalgam was much cheaper than gold, easier to apply, and less painful, as it was not boiled. In 1850 the ASDS rescinded its anti-amalgam resolution, and in 1856 it disbanded.
Over the next fifty years, many different metal combinations were tried, including the use of, among other things, platinum, cadmium, antimony and bismuth. In 1895, G. V. Black published a dental amalgam formula that provided for the most clinically acceptable performance, and his recipe remained unchanged for virtually seventy years.
Controversy over the mercury component of dental amalgam dates back to its inception, when it was vigorously opposed by the dental establishment, but it has become a prominent debate in the late 20th century, with the pressure to eliminate it at an all-time high. Despite the known toxicity of mercury, many people are unaware of the mercury in fillings.
Environmental concerns over amalgam exist as well. The WHO reports that mercury from amalgam accounts for 5% of total mercury emissions and that when combined with waste mercury from laboratory and medical devices, represents 53% of total mercury emissions. Separators used in dental surgeries may dramatically decrease the release of mercury into the public sewer system, where dental amalgams contribute one-third of the mercury waste, but their use are not widespread. As of 2008, the use of dental amalgam has been restricted in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and a committee of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has refused to ratify assertions of safety.
Scientists agree that mercury amalgam fillings expose the bearers to a daily dose of mercury, but the level and effects of the chronic exposure are disputed. In the 1990's several governments evaluated the effects of dental amalgam and concluded that the most likely health effects would be due to hypersensitivity or allergy. Germany, Austria, and Canada recommended against placing amalgam in certain individuals such as
pregnant women, children, those with renal dysfunction, and those with an allergy to metals.
More facts & stories about the beginnings of Dentistry
Horace Wells, Pioneer of the use of Anaesthesia in Dentistry
Horace Wells (1815 –1848) was an American dentist who pioneered the use of anaesthesia in dentistry, specifically nitrous
oxide (or laughing gas).
Wells first bore witness to the effects of laughing gas in 1844 when he volunteered to have it demonstrated on him by
Gardner Quincy Colton, a member of a traveling circus. Wells felt nothing, and began utilising it on his own patients. He did
not attempt to patent the discovery because he stated that pain relief should be 'as free as the air'.
He gave a demonstration to medical students at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 1845. However, the gas
was improperly administered and the patient cried out in pain. The audience of students jeered at Wells and left the theatre
chanting "Humbug! Humbug!" Because of this embarrassment, Wells was discredited in the medical community. However,
sometime later Wells successfully had one of his own teeth removed while using inhalant anesthesia, proving its uses.
After this disgrace, Wells gave up dentistry and became a traveling salesman for the next two years. In 1847, he left for Paris after being given a demonstration on anesthesia by his prosperous former partner William Morton. While in Europe, selling anesthesia for Morton and acting as a European expert on the subject, Wells became addicted to chloroform. In January 1848, Wells self-experimented with chloroform for a week. He became increasingly deranged. One day, delirious, Wells rushed out into the street and threw sulfuric acid over the clothing of two prostitutes. He was committed to New York's infamous Tombs Prison. As the influence of the drug waned, Wells' mind started to clear. In despair, he realised the horror of what he had done. Wells then committed suicide, slitting an artery in his leg with a razor after inhaling an analgesic dose of
chloroform to blot out the pain.
Phillip Pfaff, the Originator of Dentistry in Germany
Philipp Pfaff, referred to as the Originator of Dentistry in Germany, was the second son of the surgeon Johann Leonhard Pfaff. His date of birth is not known but he was baptised on 27 February 1713.
Pfaff studied general medicine, surgery and dental medicine with his father in Berlin and committed himself to a military career as a company surgeon in King Friedrich II Infantry regiment No. 25.
After dismissal from military service (circa 1741) Pfaff it opens a dental practice with royal permission. He published the first text book about dentistry in the German language in 1756: ‘Abhandlung von den Zähnen des menschlichen Körpers und deren Krankheiten’ (Treatise on human teeth and their diseases). Among other things this textbook describes how to take a wax impression, the use of gypsum to make dental models, and the fabrication of dentures. He also describes a technique to do a pulpotomy using a curved piece of gold to cut the vital pulp.
Pfaff dies in 1766 of a ‘chest illness’ thought to be occupation-induced tuberculosis.
The ‘Philipp Pfaff Institute’ in Berlin is an advanced training institute foe the National Dental Chambers of Berlin and Brandenburg.
Doc Holliday, dentist, gambler and gunfighter
John Henry "Doc" Holliday the famous American dentist, gambler, and gunfighter of the American Old West frontier is
usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and the 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'.
Doc Holliday, born on 14 August 1851 in Griffin, Georgia grew up in Valdosta, Georgia. Here he attended the Valdosta
Institute where he received a strong classical secondary education in rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, history, and
languages, principally Latin, but also French and some ancient Greek. In 1870, the nineteen-year-old Holliday left home
to begin dental school in Philadelphia. On March 1, 1872, he received the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery from
the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. Later that year, he opened a dental office with Arthur C. Ford in Atlanta.
Holliday was born with a cleft palate and partly cleft lip. At two months of age, this defect was repaired surgically by
Holliday's uncle, J.S. Holliday, M.D., and a family cousin, the famous physician Crawford Long. The repair left no speech
impediment, however, the repair is visible in Holliday's upper lip-line in the one authentic adult portrait-photograph which
survives, taken on the occasion of his graduation from dental school.
Shortly after beginning his dental practice, Holliday was diagnosed with tuberculosis (generally called "consumption" in that era). He was given only a few months to live, but thought moving to the drier and warmer southwestern United States might reduce the deterioration of his health. In September 1873, he went to Dallas, Texas, where he opened a dental office. He soon began gambling and realized this was a more profitable source of income. On May 12, 1874, Holliday and 12 others were indicted in Dallas for illegal gambling. He was arrested in Dallas in January 1875 after trading gunfire with a saloon-keeper, but no one was injured and he was found not guilty. In the years that followed, Holliday had many more such disagreements, fueled by a hot temper and an attitude that death by gun or knife was better than by tuberculosis. The alcohol Holliday used to control his cough may also have contributed.
Holliday started traveling on the western mining frontier, where gambling was lucrative and legal. Holliday spent some time in Denver, Cheyenne, and Deadwood.By 1877, Holliday was in Fort Griffin, Texas, where he met Wyatt Earp. The two began to form an unlikely friendship; Earp more even-tempered and controlled, Holliday more hot-headed and impulsive. This friendship was cemented in 1878 in Dodge City, Kansas, where both Earp and Holliday had traveled to make money gambling with the cowboys who drove cattle from Texas. Holliday was still practising dentistry on the side from his rooms in Dodge City, as indicated in an 1878 Dodge newspaper advertisement (he promised money back for less than complete customer satisfaction), but this is the last known time he attempted to practice. In an interview printed in a newspaper later in his life, he said that he only practised dentistry "for about 5 years."
An incident in September 1878 had Earp, at the time a deputy city marshal, surrounded by men who had "the drop" on him. Holliday, who owned a bar in the town and was dealing faro, a card game, (as he did throughout his life), left the bar, approached from another angle to cover the group with a gun, and either shot or threatened to shoot one of these men. Earp afterwards always credited Holliday with saving his life that day. Many other accounts of Holliday's involvement in gunfights, however, are sometimes exaggerated. He had several documented saloon altercations involving small shootings, where he was accounted as fast as Wild Bill Hickok, though he was often drunk and sometimes missed entirely.
Holliday, by this time, was as well known for his prowess as a gunfighter as for his gambling, though the latter was his trade and the former simply a reputation. Through his friendship with Wyatt and the other Earp brothers, Holliday made his way to the silver-mining boom town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, in September 1880. Some accounts state the Earps sent for Holliday when they realized the problems they faced in their feud with the Cowboy faction. In Tombstone, Holliday quickly became embroiled in the local politics and violence that led up to the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in October 1881.
The gunfight happened in the vacant lot and street immediately next to Fly's boarding house where Holliday had a room, the day after a late-night argument between Holliday and Ike Clanton. The Clantons and McLaurys collected in the lot before being confronted by the Earps, and Holliday likely thought they were there specifically to assassinate him. It is known Holliday carried a coach gun into the fight; he was given the weapon just before the fight by Wyatt Earp, as Holliday was wearing a long coat which could conceal it. Virgil Earp took Holliday's walking stick, by not going conspicuously armed, Virgil was seeking to avoid panic in the citizenry of Tombstone, and in the Clantons and McLaurys. The strategy failed. While Virgil held up the cane, one witness saw a man, almost certainly Holliday, poke a cowboy in the chest with the shotgun then step back. Wyatt Earp and Tom McLaury were the first men to fire, almost at the same time according to Wyatt's testimony. Shortly after, Holliday used the shotgun to kill Tom McLaury, the only man to sustain shotgun wounds, a fatal buckshot charge to the chest. After the gunfight, an inquest and arraignment hearing determined the gunfight was not a criminal act on the part of Holliday and the Earps.
After leaving Arizona Holliday spent the rest of his life in Colorado. After a stay in Leadville, he suffered from the effects of the high altitude; as a result of this and his increasing dependence on alcohol and laudanum, often taken by consumptives to ease their symptoms, his health, and evidently his gambling skills, began to deteriorate. In 1887, prematurely gray and badly ailing, Holliday made his way to the Hotel Glenwood near the hot springs of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He hoped to take advantage of the reputed curative power of the waters, but the sulfurous fumes from the spring may have done his lungs more harm than good. As he lay dying, Holliday allegedly asked for a drink of whiskey. Amused, he looked at his bootless feet as he died (no one ever thought that he would die in bed, with his boots off). His reputed last words were, "Well I'll Be Damned. This is funny."
In an 1896 article, Wyatt Earp had this to say about Holliday, "Doc was a dentist not a lawman or an assman, whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a gun that I ever knew."
Virgil Earp, interviewed May 30, 1882, in The Arizona Daily Star, summed up Holliday, "There was something very peculiar about Doc. He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man and yet, outside of us boys, I don't think he had a friend in the Territory. Tales were told that he had murdered men in different parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet, when persons were asked how they knew it, they could only admit it was hearsay, and that nothing of the kind could really be traced to Doc's account. He was a slender, sickly fellow, but whenever a stage was robbed or a row started, and help was needed, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and
report for duty".
World War I Dentistry
At the outbreak of 1914-18 War there was no place in the establishments of field ambulances and hospitals of the Australian Army Medical Corps for dentists. In an article, “Dentistry for the Soldiers” in The Commonwealth Dental Review, September 1914, Percy A. Ash reported that dentists had offered to treat 20,000 Australian men who would be sent to war. Inter alia he said: “The dentists and they alone, fully realise the value of good teeth to the soldier. The Boer War taught a lesson in that direction which will not readily be forgotten”.
Ash continues “Records showed conclusively that a large percentage of the men were rendered unfit for war service in consequence of dental troubles. In the face of this information it is very remarkable that those in control have not yet arrived at the conclusion that a properly equipped Dental Corps should accompany every army. Great efforts have been made to impress this matter on the Governments but nothing of value has no far been done. The standard reply seems to be that the Army Medical Corps is sufficient for the purpose. The best that a medical practitioner can do as rule, is to extract a tooth; he has not been trained to do more".
By 21 September it was reported that 72 dentists had offered their services for dental treatment of volunteers and that should the authorities not agree to the suggestion to send a dentist with each ship, the authorities had agreed to send dental materials in hope that one of the volunteers
would be a dentist.
The Commonwealth Dental Review, October 1914, quotes an article from the Melbourne Newspaper "Argus", related to the formation of an Army Dental Corps: "The Secretary of the Australian College of Dentistry (Mr E. Joske) has forwarded a further urgent memorandum to Colonel Fetherston, the Director General of the Army Medical Corps, with respect to the teeth of the Expeditionary Forces, as the council of the college thought it ought be of assistance at this urgent juncture of affairs if their proposals were placed before him in concrete form for submission to the Minister for Defence."
The proposals:
(1) With respect to the dental treatment of troops leaving by ship; The appointment of a dentist (to be a commissioned officer) and of a dental mechanic to be a non-commissioned officer) to accompany the troops on board each ships The dentist could attend to about 20 patients a day and this dental treatment would enable the troops to arrive at their destination with their teeth in a sound condition.
The approximate cost as regards operative treatment would be, for each ship:
Portable chair bracket and spittoon .. 20 pounds
Instruments .. 25 pounds
Drugs and material .. 30 pounds
Minor expenses .. 5 pounds
Total cost .. 80 pounds
The material would be sufficient to treat about 700 men surgically. As regards mechanical
treatment, the council estimate a complete kit of instruments and tools and materials sufficient
to supply approximately 250 sets of artificial teeth would be 70 pounds. Then there would be the
remuneration of the dentist and the mechanic on each ship to be provided for.
(2) As regards the formation of a dental corps: One dentist and one dental mechanic to each
battalion of infantry, one dentist and one dental mechanic to each battery of artillery; one dentist
and one dental mechanic to each thousand men of the Light Horse. In each case the dentist to be
a commissioned officer; the dental mechanic to be a non-commissioned officer. Over and above
these there should be a captain attached to the staff of the brigadier general, who should attend
to the officers teeth, be in charge of the whole dental corpse and receive instructions direct from
the brigadier-general. As regards the Australian Navy, there should be at least one dentist and
one dental mechanic attached to each thousand men. The dentist to be a commissioned officer,
the dental mechanic to be a non-commissioned officer.
View of the dental ward, General Hospital No. 20, World War I, Dannes-Camiers, France, ca. 1915-1919
Antique Dental Instruments - A very nice website to visit
If you are interested in viewing more pictures of antique dental instruments, click on the link below to take you to the website of Dr. Gregory Ribitzky, a practising dentist in in the town of Beer Sheba, the capital of the Negev Desert, Israel.
This website represents Dr. Ribitzky's personal collection of dental instruments, books and ephemera. The image based site can be browsed but it is not searchable. It contains some 200 good quality images of historic dental tools, trade cards, advertising and related items
such as toothpaste. The site is most useful for those seeking visual information on early dental equipment. The English version
of the site contains much that is still written in the original Hebrew and there is limited accompanying text in English. The items
are well presented and clearly photographed in detail - where possible, their use is demonstrated or shown in illustration.
St Apollonia the Patron Saint of Dentistry
Sir John Tomes (1815 - 1895)
First Dentition, 1841 - page 1
Novocain - Alfred Einhorn
Amalgam, history of the debate about mercury
Toothpaste, Dental floss & Toothpicks
Toothbrush
History of Orthodontics
Horace Wells, Pioneer of the use of Anaesthesia in Dentistry
Phillip Pfaff, the Originator of Dentistry in Germany
Doc Holliday, dentist, gambler and gunfighter
World War I Dentistry
Antique Dental Instruments - A very nice website to visit
The Teeth That Saved The World?
Click for specific stories
The Teeth That Saved The World?
The amazing story of Churchill's denture. This denture was worn by Winston Churchill during the Second World War. Its size belies its importance: Churchill relied on his false teeth to maintain his distinctive public speaking style!
Churchill’s dentures were made by the dentist Wilfred Fish and his dental technician Derek Cudlipp. The
photograph of the denture shown here was one of the spares kept by Cudlipp in case of emergency.
For Churchill, a well-fitting denture was a crucial physical and psychological prop. It allowed him to speak
effectively - a vital attribute for any politician, and especially for one whose oratorical skills were so central
to his success. Throughout his adult life Churchill was haunted by the fear of losing his ability to speak - a
fear which was rooted in his own upbringing, and which caused him a considerable amount of anxiety.
Dentures like the one worn by Winston Churchill are normally made to fit as closely as possible to the palate
of the wearer. A well-fitting plate is held in place by the suction between the palate and the denture, as well as the clasps which hold the denture in position relative to the surviving teeth. Churchill’s denture was different. To compensate for his natural lisp his denture was designed to leave a gap between the plate and the roof of his mouth. As a result of this design there was a great deal of stress on the clasps which held the plate in place. The loss of a denture through breakage would prevent Churchill from speaking - a situation which filled him with horror - and so he made sure that his private secretary always had a spare on hand.
The denture is made from a cast gold plate, with platinum clasps holding porcelain teeth facings. The denture shows signs of wear, notably on the base where the occlusal or bite marks from the lower teeth can be seen. Churchill's original denture was made from vulcanite (hardened rubber). This was uncomfortable to wear, and as a result it spent more time in Churchill’s pocket than his mouth. On one occasion he sat on and broke it, necessitating a frantic repair. A cast-gold replacement was made. Subsequently a second version was made, with a larger palate which was more comfortable to wear. Although the initial designs had cast gold clasps these were replaced in subsequent versions by soldered platimum clasps.
There were unavoidable weaknesses with this design. The short porcelain teeth with tube retention were prone to fracture because of the pressure on them from the lower natural front teeth. In addition the load on the metal clasps made them stress hardened and also more likely to break. A plentiful supply of porcelain facings were obtained from the USA and kept in stock.
