As we are aware most practitioners that put the time, effort and integrity in the pursuit of creating a holistically acceptable dental appliance are usually rewarded with satisfied patients that return with good memorable words as apposed to the condemnation of disgruntled patients that attach everlasting bad ones. Overall however, I believe most practitioners spend a great deal of time trying their very best to make sure the dental appliance will be successful for their patient
History and Fabrication of Dentures
The quest for replacing decaying or lost teeth has been sought for many hundreds of years and it is believed even thousands. Research has found that well constructed and designed dentures, had been made by skilful craftsmen as early as 700 BC, using ivory and bone.
Our earliest recorded denture based information, dates to mid 700BC, in northern Italy the Etruscans, who would make dentures out of human teeth acquired from graveyards. Donations from families of the recent defunct or live donors that would sell their own teeth for the exchange of money. Even animal teeth were used, as they were a lot easier to get a hold of. Of course, these early dental specialist found that the their chosen and somewhat preferred product was highly adverse and deteriorated expediently. However, being so easy to acquire it made the then format popular enough to last until mid 1800’s.
The first European set of dentures date from the 1400’s and then there is some suggestion that they existed even before that time. It has also been implied that they may have been carved from bone or ivory, form the elephant tusks, hippopotamuses walruses and others.
In today’s standards, it is fair to say that these dentures would have been extremely uncomfortable. Some examples show attachments to the base hinged or wired by hand to any remaining teeth with a thread of wire or silk.
Peter de la Roche is said to be known as one of the first Denture operators. One of the men who were respected and highly valued and known as specialists for oral and dental work. Often, Their usual professional was in ivory caving barber surgeons or goldsmiths.
However, this early technology was somehow found to be unutilised right up until the 1700’s. Even up till and during the 1800’s, dentures were very scarcely considered or even known of. Those days, it was expected for people to lack dentally and would not be frowned upon or looked at oddly if people had discoloured, broken, rotting, or fenestral gaps between teeth.
It has been said that Queen Elizabeth the first would use cloth in and around her teeth to improve her appearance in public. Subsequently, dentures were hand-carved and anchored firmly in place with silk threads. Retention of false teeth was a very difficult factor to address, especially for those that struggled with a full set of dentures where the function of eating would be an extremely cumbersome process and therefore the so-called dentures would be perpetually removed. Later, as the denturist of the time got more ingenious, the upper and lower plates that fitted poorly were held together by steel springs. They were then attached to the outer sides of the top and bottom denture. George Washington was another candidate, suffering from poor oral condition, such as, tooth loss and ill-fitting dentures.
The main reason that the technology was so stagnant was due to the lack of suitable materials for dental appliances. Antiquated material for dental appliances initially consisted of ivory and even animal bone. In many cases, human teeth were also used. The teeth would be surreptitiously removed from the deceased and sold. In many circumstances the poorer people of society would self-extract from their own mouths and sell the teeth to the more affluent just to survive. Of course, these teeth soon rotted away and became necrotized inducing extremely bad smelling odours and other orally related physiological problems.
Latter, the wealthier socio-economic group discovered that these appliances were being constructed of gold, silver and even natural pearl, which was then pursued.
In 1774, Duchateau and Dubois de Chemant designed a full set ofdentures that would not rot. They were made of porcelain. The first porcelain dentures were made around 1770 by Alexis Duchateau.
In 1791 the first denture patent was granted to Nicholas Dubois De Chemant by the British government. Nicholas Dubois De Chemant was Duchateau prior assistant. In 1792 his business grew with the assistance of the Wedgwood Company supplying him major amounts of porcelain paste, the core product of porcelain teeth. The business at that stage would be supplying the general denture market, initially in Britain and then expanding to the rest of Europe.
In the late1700’s gypsum plaster was introduced. It was used to make a mould of the patient’s mouth. This helped the shape of the dentures to be more precise.
In 1808 Giuseppangelo Fonzi handcrafted the single porcelain tooth with a metal pin imbedded in the rear of tooth’s body, which was mechanically held it in place.
In 1837 Claudius Ash was successful in improving the porcelain tooth of the day. In the early 1800”s Porcelain dentures moved to the United States and were marketed to the general market on a large scale.
In the 1840’s vulcanised rubber was discovered which, was at that time, thought to be a real break through. It was a cheap, and easy material to work with, that shaping it to fit the mouth and hold the synthetic dentition, was possible. Eventually the fit and comfort improved as well.
Around that time, celluloid’s were tried instead of rubber. It was essentially a cheaper product and it didn’t prove to be the best material to use.
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In the early 1900’s plastics and cross-linked acrylics were being explored. Due to their incredibly massive need and acceptance.
Acrylics were instantly being manufactured for the vast number of divers industries. This new and innovative material was found to be so versatile and perfect for denture applications. That, of course, was instantly well received by the greater majority of the denture fabrication industry, to the point that the same technology and material is still used. Some new advance in the acrylics technology, which is more recent, is currently producing flexible acrylics and light ray specific curing acrylics.
Today complete dentures and partial dentures are made of high quality acrylic. Other products used, currently consist of highly accurate impression materials, such as, alginates and even more accurate rubber base products. There are also, of course, other products which, include porcelain, silver, gold etc.
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