DENTAL SURGERY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20892, 23 November 1937, Page 8

DENTAL SURGERY

WHAT DID EGYPTIANS KNOW? A recent paragraph in this paper referred to the long pedigree of dental surgery and suggested that it was practised in ancient Egypt, reports the “Manchester Guardian.” It is true that the jaws of Egyptian mummies show the ravages of pyorrhoea, but there is less certain evidence of the ability of Egyptian dentists to treat it, and the so-called gold fillings found in the mummies’ teeth are now thought to have been placed there for ornament rather than for arresting dental decay. But in Greece there certainly were dentists, and one of them who lived in the third century B.C. has left a curious indication of his theories by depositing in the temple of the Delphic Apollo a pair of leaden forceps to show that only those teeth ought to be removed which are loose and relaxed, and for which a leaden instrument will suffice. In one of the “Odes” Horace alludes to the belief that decayed teeth were the result of telling falsehoods. Perhaps that may explain why false teeth, which have been known since at least as early as the first century A.D., have always been regarded as a legitimate target for witticisms. In an ungallant epigram Martial asks why Thais has black teeth while Laecania’s are white, and explains that Thai’s teeth were her own while Laecania’s were bought. The dentures of those days were commonly carved out of solid blocks of bone or Ivory and must have been an even more expensive luxury than their modern successors.