A History of Dentistry from the most Ancient Times until the end of the Eighteenth Century. Vincenzo Guerini
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