Volume 219 Issue 11, 11 December 2015
'HISTORY OF DENTISTRY IN 12 OBJECTS' SERIES: IVORY DENTURES
The cover series for volume 219 celebrates 80 years of the British Dental Association (BDA) Museum. Each front cover features an object which highlights a landmark in dental history. The catch is that the object is placed out of its historical context and in a modern environment, causing you to look twice at each picture. The landmark objects were chosen by BDA Museum volunteers.
The cover of this particular issue features a grinning pair of early nineteenth century dentures. References to artificial and replacement teeth in the seventeenth century are rare. It seems that hippopotamus and walrus ivory dentures were introduced around the 1720s. By the 1730s wax was being used as an impression material to produce stone models onto which blocks of ivory would be shaped and seated to mimic a set of teeth. This technique produced a closer fitting denture than the mouth measuring callipers of old. The ivory dentures on the cover, held in a modern Galetti articulator by laboratory blue stone, are very fine examples from around the 1800s. Each arch, including the teeth, would have been carved from a single block of hippopotamus or walrus tusk onto a stone model. The coiled gold wire springs aided the retention of the upper enture and was a common feature until the 1880s. The introduction of more accurately fitting denture bases, usually vulcanite, used the thin salivary seal produced around the periphery of the denture for retention. This made the spring, the most successful adjunct for stability over the previous 130 years, redundant.
Photography by Filip Gierlinski
Website: www.filskifoto.com; Email: filip@filskifoto.com
With many thanks to Jack Bester, Lead Restorative Technician at the Maxillofacial and General Prosthetics Laboratory at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead for providing us with assistance, materials and facilities for this photoshoot.
Editorial
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