Читать книгу The Little Book of Medical Breakthroughs - Dr. Naomi Craft - Страница 18

With the discovery of resins and plastics, it is now possible to fill a gap in the teeth with a denture that functions, isn’t painful and looks realistic.

In the 16th century English queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) reportedly plugged the gaps in her teeth with pieces of cloth when she appeared in public. Poorer people were often completely toothless. And, although people have been making false teeth since at least 700 BC, it is only since the discovery of porcelain dentures in the 18th century that they have been a real option.

Before then dentures were made out of bone, wood or ivory – often from a hippopotamus or walrus – that rotted fast because they were not enamelled. Teeth were also pulled from corpses and reused, and poor people donated their own teeth in exchange for money. Generally these human teeth were of pretty poor quality, often rotting before they were removed.

For many years it was normal practice to pull teeth out of soldiers’ mouths on the battlefield, and wartime provided a generous supply of what were known as ‘Waterloo teeth’. Generally these were of slightly better quality than the normal supply of human teeth, because dead soldiers were usually young.

Rotting false teeth produced a horrible taste and foul breath. Fans became fashionable to cover up both the teeth and the smell and many people preferred to go toothless.

Duchâteau was a French apothecary and was the first to make dentures out of porcelain in order to produce a result that looked more like real teeth and would last longer.

Parisian dentist Nicolas Dubois de Chemant (1753–1824), who worked for Duchâteau, was the first to patent the design in 1776. In A Dissertation on Artificial Teeth in General he wrote that the invention was:

A composition for the purpose of making of artificial teeth either single, double or in rows or in complete sets and also springs for fastening or affixing the same in a more easy and effectual manner than any hitherto discovered. Said teeth may be made of any shade or colour, which they will retain for any length of time and will consequently more perfectly resemble the natural teeth.

Josiah Wedgewood (1730–1795), an English pottery designer, supplied most of the porcelain paste. However, porcelain teeth tended to chip and break and were too white to be realistic. It was also hard to get a good fit in the mouth. As a result, artificial teeth did not become popular until around 1826, some 50 years later, after the discovery of vulcanized rubber made it possible to make better moulds and, therefore, properly fitting dentures. Subsequent advances in plastics and resins led to the manufacture of teeth that were more natural looking.