A Blast From The Past

       “The Tooth And Nothing But The Tooth”

             
    By Chris “Dr Smile Maker” Branfield

  A Blast From The Past

            

Hello again and Happy New Year!!  I hope that you didn’t over do it on the turkey. Also no casualties on any caramels or nuts!

Filling In The Gaps And Then Something Different

A major way of improving your quality of life if you have missing teeth is to fill in the gaps.  This can give an enormous boost to your self-esteem.  There are several ways of replacing of missing teeth. Some are more successful than others. Some are more “lookers” than “chewers”.  With some you can look great and chew great.  Options available are dental implants, bridges and dentures.

Now For The Different Bit

You may well be fed up with me rambling on about how absolutely, excellently, superb modern day, 21^st century dentistry is and’ bigging us up’ and patting us on the back. I thought that I would change tack and have a look at some dentistry from the past. Tooth replacement goes way back and some of it is really ingenious.

In 1931 a jaw bone was found in Honduras. It was believed to be the jaw of a Mayan.  The Mayas were a very sophisticated ancient society originating in about 2500 B.C. They reached their cultural heights in from about 300 A.D. to about 900 A.D.  The find was believed to be from about 600A.D.  The jaw has three pieces of shell that had been shaped into a wedge design and been implanted into the lower jaw to replace some missing incisor teeth. Two of the shell implants had evidence of bone growing around them. I doubt that the long term success rates where that great though. Many different types of materials have been used to implant into the jaws to try and replace missing teeth including shell, ivory, bone and teeth from dead and living animals and humans.  There was no modern anaesthesia/analgesia back then so a whole lot of hypnotherapy would have been needed.  Mind you I don’t know what ‘herbs’ would have been available back then.

A Rooster With A Tooth In Its Comb!

In the 18^th century John Hunt, one of the greatest surgeons of his time, performed an experiment.  He transplanted a ‘living’ human tooth whose root had not yet fully developed (i.e. a child’s tooth) into the comb of a live cockerel.  The blood vessels from the cockerel grew into the tooth and it became firmly rooted into the comb. Now get this bit!  Hunter then advocated that when a tooth was to be transplanted into the socket of a missing tooth that there should be several young donors present.  If the first tooth extracted from a child donor did not fit the socket the socket then one from the next donor would be tried and so on until a good fit was achieved. The practice died out after repeated reports of failure and the transmission of disease had been recognised, especially syphilis.

You’ve never had it so good

I know I said that I wouldn’t go on about modern dentistry but compared to that lot I reckon it’s not that bad today.  I’ll zip it now. Honest.

Whoopy Do

I went to Berlin last month to an International Dental Laser Conference and also sit my final exams for a Mastership In Dental Lasers Diploma from the University of Aachen.  Well I passed and I’m really chuffed.  There was some cutting edge stuff there, it blew me away.

Until next time.   Take care and be good. 

Chris Branfield is Principal Dentist at Castle Park Dental Care, Castle Villa, 28 Castle Road, Cottingham, telephone 01482 772550.  He has been in dental practice for 23 years and has a special interest in life changing, pain free dentistry with dental implants, rapid teeth straightening and cosmetic dentistry. And, not only that Chris is founder member and trustee of Dental Mavericks charity- ending the daily dental pain of Moroccan kids. For more patient success stories and Chris’s charity work go here now www.castleparkdental.co.uk