University of Maryland Baltimore Dental School - Mirror Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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THE MIRROR folklore says : If a man dreams that his false teeth have fallen out it is a bad omen that his children will soon die. Among the orthodox Jews, specially of the large cities of Europe, where the rabbis are regarded as the lawgivers of Hebrew communities even now after the Ghetto era, none will submit to a dental opera- tion unless the ingredients used by the operators are pronounced by their spiritual advisers as not prohibited by the rabbinical code or the ceremonial law. Anything obtained from the bodies of such animals as swine, hippopotami, oysters, etc., would be posi- tively forbidden to be used in dentures to be applied to Jewish patrons. The Chinese were in ancient days a persevering people and made w onderful advancements in the arts, and especially in the sciences. The practice of dentistry in China is doubtless very an- cient, but it has not attained that perfection which characterizes the modern art. It is well known that the Chinese attribute tooth- ache to the gnawing of worms and that their dentists claim they take these worms from decayed teeth. The Chinese doctor or den- tist ranks no higher than the ordinary skilled workman. He gets from 15 to 20 cents a visit, and he often takes patients on condi- tion that he will cure them within a certain time, or no pay. He never sees his female patients except behind a screen, and he does not pay a second visit unless he is invited. His pay is called golden thanks, and the orthodox way of sending it to him is to wrap it in red paper. Artificial teeth among the Chinese of medie- val times were seldom worn, since the dental surgeon not only seemed skilled enough to preserve them, but the Chinese were known to be the possessors of sound teeth. We now leave the superstitious Chinaman and wander to his neighbor, the skillful and dextrous Japanese. It is a little re- markable that a nation which places the value they do upon their teeth and who take the care that is everywhere evident of their appearance should be ignorant of everything relating to them other than their mere mechanical substitution. Taken as a race, the Japanese have not good teeth, neither can they be said to be IS

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THE MIRROR Ancient writers refer to the practice of dentistry as being coeval with the birth of medicine. The great Egyptologist Ebers has proven that in the Egyptian medical schools they had special teach- ers of dentistry upwards of 3000 years ago. The Egyptians at- tached great value to the dental organs, and one of their most severe punishments consisted in having one of the front teeth ex- tracted. I would be natural to suppose that in order to avoid sus- picion of guilt as well as to restore the loss artificial teeth were invented and substituted for the lost organs. Exhumed from the timeworn Egyptian tombs antedatin g the records of Herodotus, mouldering skeletons present arrays of gold-filled teeth, and an able authority states that the art of clasp-work was understood to some exactness. Gold work was understood by these ancient prac- titioners. A set of artificial teeth was discovered, the base being of solid gold and the teeth ivory. Bone and wooden teeth were frequently found by Belzoni in his researches in Egypt. It ap- pears that women, too, practiced the art of medicine and dentistry in those ancient days, since we find that women, being forbidden to consult with men, received services from their ov n sex. At the present time there are scores of women dentists practicing den- tistry in Egypt. Hebrew dental art is so intimately interwoven with the Egyp- tian that, aside from the Talmudical obligations, the dental art was practiced and understood by Hebrews and Egyptians alike. The ancient Hebrews were not noted for having at any period of their existence displayed any great amount of mechanical ingenuity and originality in the arts and sciences and cannot with good au- thority be accredited. These people, if at all gifted in this direc- tion, have failed to leave a lasting impression. Language and law were perhaps their great triumphs. The ancient Hebrews too well knew the worth of teeth, and the great King Solomon wisely nick- named them the millstones, and they were by his people recog- nized as the motive power of life. Moses legislated his famous law known as tooth for tooth, an edict which was altered and ex- plained in the Talmud to mean a fine or penalty. The Talmudical 14

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THE MIRROR very bad. Caries, with its resulting odontalgia, is quite common ; but the most frequent cause of trouble is the accumulation of tar- tar. It is one of the peculiarities of the peculiar land that among the females one seldom meets with beauty, either among the very young or the aged. In both cases they are entirely devoid of color, but in early womanhood it is not rare, nor is color wanting to lend its charm. The teeth of the musmies, or daughters, of Japan are objects of envy, but the horrible custom of blacking the teeth after marriage destroys what little beauty time has not yet stolen. Ir- regularities are common. Their teeth being large, the jaw is not sufficiently expanded for their proper placement. Owing to the fact that dentistry exists only as a mechanical trade, the status of those who practice it is not high. Dentistry does not give social position, neither does it wealth. In full practice, a dentist may get two or three cases in a month, and for some he may receive as high as $5 ; but that is a price far above the ability of the majority to pay, from $i to $2 being the usual rate. The base is always of wood. On the cheaper sorts the teeth are merely outlined upon the base, but generally they consist of ivory, shark ' s teeth, or stone, set into the wood and retained in position by being strung on a thread, which is secured at each end by a peg driven into the hole where it makes its exit from the base. The Japanese are a very dextrous people, and if superstitions could be eliminated much in a mechanical sense might be expected. Ancient Phoenicia, bordering on the eastern coast of the Medi- terranean Sea, was particularly noted for its two great cities, Sidon and grand Tyre, and these cities, in turn, were famous for their manufacturers and artists. With Phoenician art and science the modern world has been little acquainted until the discoveries made by General de Cesnola, the results of which are in the Ces- nola collection at the Metropolitan Museum, New York city. A specimen of ancient Phoenician dentistry is accurately described by M. Ernest Renan in his work, entitled Mission de Phoenicie et le Campangne de Sidon, as follows : But that which was most interesting was the upper portion of a woman ' s jaw, showing th e 16