Читать книгу A History of Dentistry from the most Ancient Times until the end of the Eighteenth Century - Vincenzo Guerini - Страница 15

Fig. 11

Fig. 12

Dentures in terra-cotta, such as the Etruscans used to present to their divinities as votive offerings in order to be cured, or after having been cured of dental maladies.

As to what concerns dental art, everything leads up to the belief that it was practised by the Egyptians and Phœnicians earlier than by the Etruscans, whose civilization, as already hinted, is certainly less ancient. Nevertheless, in comparing the dental appliances found in the Etruscan tombs with the sole authentic dental appliance of Phœnician workmanship known at the present day,105 we cannot but be struck with the great superiority of the Etruscan appliances. It is therefore probable that the Etruscans, although they had learned the dental art from the Egyptians and Phœnicians, had subsequently carried it to a much higher degree of perfection than it had arrived at in Egypt or in Phœnicia. An analogous fact has come to pass in our own times. Dental art in America, which emanated from the French and English schools, soon took on so vigorous a development as indisputably to acquire first rank.

Before describing in detail the dental appliances found up to now in Etruscan tombs, we will consider a question touching very closely upon the argument which we are treating and which has already been discussed in Professor Deneffe’s book, already cited.

How is it that the dental appliances of the Phœnicians, Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans should have come down to us, notwithstanding cremation?

In the first place, if one reflects that the teeth offer an altogether special resistance to the action of fire, and if one also remembers that gold was the substance employed for the construction of the appliances in question, and that this metal does not melt save at a very high temperature, it no longer appears marvellous if, in many cases at least, the dental appliances should have been able to resist the cremating process.

In the second place, the cremation may possibly sometimes have been incomplete—that is to say, the skeleton may not have been altogether reduced to ashes; therefore, among the residuum of this incomplete combustion, a piece of a jaw may easily have remained, and incidentally also its prosthetic appliance.

But besides all this, it must be considered that the custom of burning corpses was not at all general among ancient people. Indeed, cremation was not in use either among the Egyptians, the Phœnicians, the Hebrews, or the Chinese; the Greeks only resorted to it in exceptional cases. The most ancient tombs of the Etruscans show that at the epoch of their settling in Italy, cremation was in general use among them. But little by little, as they entered into commercial relations with the Egyptian, the Phœnician, and the Greek peoples, who did not burn their dead, the custom of burial substituted that of cremation. Toward the end of the sixth century before Christ there were to be found in southern Etruria, one beside the other, tombs for the burial of corpses and others for cremation.

One sometimes finds in one and the same tomb a cinerarium (urn for conserving ashes) and skeletons enclosed in sarcophagi or resting on mortuary couches.

At Tarquinii and Orvieto burial generally prevails.

In the fifth century B.C., the epoch in which the Law of the Twelve Tables was promulgated, burial and cremation were equally in use among the Romans. In the second century of the Christian era burial was already prevalent, and through the influence of Christianity became general during the third and fourth centuries.106

Fig. 13	Fig. 14
Tooth crowns found in an Etruscan tomb of the ancient Vitulonia (Archæological Museum of Florence). The enamel-capsules of these teeth (four molars and one canine) are perfectly well preserved, whilst the ivory has entirely disappeared.	The same tooth crowns of the preceding figure, seen from the side of the concavity of the enamel capsules.

Notwithstanding cremation, which certainly must have destroyed a great number of the dental appliances of that time, and in spite of the many different destructive agents which successively did their work on those human remains during so many centuries, not a few prosthetic pieces of Etruscan workmanship have come down to us; from which we may argue that dental prosthesis was not an exceptional fact among this people, as some may perhaps suppose, but, on the contrary, must have been a very usual practice.

The dental appliances discovered up to now among Etruscan remains are preserved in different Italian museums, with the exception of some few existing in private collections or of others that have passed out of Italy into other countries.

In the museum of Pope Julius in Rome there is a dental appliance found at Valsiarosa in one of the many Etruscan tombs excavated in that locality near Civita Castellana, the ancient Falerii (Fig. 15). This appliance is formed by a series of four gold rings meant to encircle four teeth (canine, bicuspids, and first molar). The third ring is traversed by a pivot riveted at the two extremities, which was meant to hold fast an artificial tooth (the second bicuspid); this is wanting, however. One naturally puts the question. How is the disappearance of this tooth to be accounted for, it having been traversed by the pivot, which is still found in its place? The suppositions are two: Either the artificial tooth was made of some not very durable material, which, in the course of time, became reduced to powder or fell to pieces, or may have been destroyed in some other way; or else the artificial tooth, instead of being simply perforated to allow the pivot to pass through, was cleft longitudinally at its base and, being introduced into the ring sat, so to speak, astride the pivot. In the second case, which, however, seems to me the less probable of the two, the tooth may merely have come off the pivot and gotten lost.

In the Civic Museum of Corneto, the ancient Tarquinii, there are two dental appliances, one of which (Figs. 16 and 17) is of the greatest interest. It was found in one of the most ancient tombs in the necropolis of Tarquinii. This specimen of prosthesis is formed of three teeth; the two upper central incisors and the second bicuspid on the left, which is no longer in existence.

Fig. 15

Etruscan appliance found at Valsiarosa, destined to support an artificial bicuspid, now disappeared.

To afford support and maintain the three artificial teeth in position, the Etruscan dentist of about three thousand years ago, ingeniously made use of the canine and the lateral incisor on the right, the canine, the first bicuspid, and the first molar on the left, connecting them by a continuous series of pure gold rings soldered together. The dentist had not employed human teeth to replace the incisors which the individual had lost; according to the religious laws of the time, the dead were held sacred, and it would probably have been considered sacrilege to use their teeth; or it may also be that the patient had declared his aversion to the idea of substituting his own teeth by those of a dead man. However this may be, the Etruscan dentist thought well to replace the missing incisors with a somewhat large ox tooth; upon this he had made a groove, so as to give it the appearance of two teeth. In reality this ox tooth occupies the place not only of the two middle incisors, but also of the lateral incisor on the left. Perhaps by a natural anomaly the individual may never have had this tooth; or, more probably still, some length of time may have elapsed between the loss of one of the three and the other two, so that when he made up his mind to have recourse to a prosthetic appliance, the space normally occupied by the three incisors was already notably diminished, and the void could therefore be filled by an ox tooth so adjusted as to represent only two teeth.

Fig. 16

Etruscan appliance for supporting three artificial teeth, two of which were made of one ox tooth. (Civic Museum of Corneto).

Fig. 17

The same appliance reversed.

When I was intrusted with the reproduction of all the ancient prosthetic pieces existing in the Italian museums, I met with special difficulty in the reproduction of the above-mentioned piece; and this because I could not succeed in procuring an ox tooth that was not worn away by the effects of mastication. The idea then occurred to me of sectioning the upper jaw of a calf at about the age of the second dentition, and taking out the teeth, which were already strong and well formed, but not yet deteriorated by mastication. I fancy my Etruscan colleague must have done the same three thousand years ago, when he carried out the prosthesis in question, for the large tooth employed by him does not show any signs of being worn by mastication.

This large tooth is solidly fixed by means of two pivots to the gold band that encircles it. Another pivot served to fix the second bicuspid, also artificial. This tooth, as already stated, has now disappeared, but the pivot that fixed it to its ring is still in its place. In carrying out this prosthesis the dentist has contrived the series of rings that support the teeth in such a manner that they remained above the gum, and thus the harmful effects of contact and of the pressure of an extraneous body was avoided. At the same time, this arrangement, by distancing the rings from the dental neck that narrows off conically, added to the firmness of the prosthesis.

Fig. 18

Etruscan appliance for supporting two inserted human teeth, one of which is now wanting. (Civic Museum of Corneto.)

Another dental appliance (Fig. 18) which is in the custody of the Civic Museum of Corneto, was also found in a very old Etruscan tomb. It is formed by two bands of rolled gold; one of these is labial, the other lingual, and they are soldered together at their extremities, forming by the help of four partitions, also of gold, five square spaces. Three of these served for the reception of the natural teeth supporting the prosthesis; the other two maintained, by means of pivots, two inserted human teeth; one of these is lost; the other is still in its place, solidly fixed by its pivot. These inserted human teeth, by the religious laws we have before mentioned, could not have been taken from corpses; probably they belonged to the person himself, and having fallen out through alveolitis, had been reapplied in the manner described above.

Fig. 19

Etruscan appliance supporting one inserted tooth (upper middle incisor on the right) which is now disappeared. (Museum of the Conte Bruschi at Corneto.)

Two Etruscan dental appliances are to be found in the Museum of the Conte Bruschi at Corneto: one is similar to those already described, and the other, instead, is of a special kind. The first (Fig. 19) is formed by a series of four rings, embracing the upper canine on the right and the three neighboring incisors. It was destined to support a single inserted tooth, the middle incisor on the right; this has disappeared, while the pivot by which it was fixed to the ring is still there, as well as the three natural teeth that afforded support to the appliance.

Fig. 20

Etruscan appliance intended to avoid the bad effects of convergence, or, perhaps, to support a purely ornamental artificial substitute. (Museum of Conte Bruschi at Corneto.)

The other appliance (Fig. 20) is formed by two rings; the one surrounds the left upper canine, the other the left middle incisor. Between these two rings there is not the usual ring crossed by a pivot, but simply a small horizontal bar of gold soldered to the two rings. I suppose that the person not liking to wear false teeth (one meets with this repugnance also at the present day), the dentist has limited himself to putting a horizontal bar of gold between the two teeth on either side of the missing one, in order to maintain them in their normal position and so avoid the bad effects of convergence.

Fig. 21

Dental appliance still adhering to the jaw, discovered in an Etruscan necropolis near Orvieto, and now in the possession of the Ghent University.

Another ancient dental appliance discovered in an Etruscan necropolis near Orvieto is now in the possession of the Ghent University, to which it was sold.107 It still adheres to a piece of upper jaw (Fig. 21), in which there are four teeth on each side, that is, on the right, the canine, the two bicuspids, and the first molar; on the left, the canine, the second bicuspid, and the two first molars. The alveoli of the four incisors are of normal width and depth, this signifying that these teeth remained in their places until the end of life. The dental appliance, still supported by this fragment of a jaw, is made of the purest gold. It is composed of a small band curved back upon itself, the ends being soldered together, and, by the aid of two partitions, also of pure gold, it forms three compartments, two small lateral ones, and one centre one of double the size. The lateral compartment on the right contains the canine of the same side; that on the left must have contained the left central incisor, that has now disappeared, while the large central compartment must evidently have contained the two incisors on the right side. As there is no pivot in the whole appliance, and as the alveoli are not obliterated, there can be no doubt that the appliance was simply destined to prevent the loss of the two right incisors by keeping them steady.

Fig. 22

The same piece as in the preceding figure, seen from the palatal side.

It is to be noted, with regard to the Etruscan dental appliances above described, that the gold bands of which they were constructed covered a considerable part of the dental crown, so that these prosthetic appliances certainly could not have had the pretension of escaping the notice of others, they being, on the contrary, most visible. It is in consequence to be surmised that in those times the wearing of false teeth and other kinds of dental appliance was not a thing to be ashamed of; indeed, that it rather constituted a luxury, a sort of refinement only accessible to persons of means. Besides this, as the gold in which these works were carried out was of the purest quality and in consequence very soft, the appliances would not have possessed sufficient solidity if the softness of the pure gold had not been counteracted by the width and thickness of the bands or strips.

Fig. 23

Etruscan appliance (found in 1865 in a tomb by Cervetri), destined perhaps to support a purely ornamental artificial substitute. (Belonging to Castellani’s collection, Rome.)

Fig. 24

A reproduction of the gold piece forming the appliance seen in Fig. 23.

In those of the Etruscan appliances destined for the application of inserted teeth, the gum was not made to support the prosthesis, and did not, therefore, suffer any compression from the extraneous body, this resting entirely, like a bridge, upon the neighboring teeth. From which it may be seen that twenty-five centuries and more before our time the Etruscans dentists already practised a system of bridge work, and, relatively to the age, carried it out with sufficient ability.