This alone should be sufficient, even were further proof wanting, to give us an idea of the degree of development and of the point of perfection reached by dental prosthesis at that time. But besides this, we now also possess an ancient Roman piece furnishing a palpable proof of the ability and ingenuity of the dentists of that epoch. Some few years since, I had occasion, in the pursuit of dental archæological research, to visit the Museum of Pope Julius in Rome, where I was shown a prosthetic piece, not yet exhibited to the general public, that had been discovered a few months previous in excavating at Satricum, near Rome. I was invited to give an opinion as to this appliance, and, after having examined it accurately, became aware, not without some emotion, I am fain to confess, that I held in my hands a prosthetic piece of exceptional historical importance, that is, no less than a specimen of ancient crown work.
| Fig. 31 | Fig. 32 |
| Roman appliance found at Satricum; crown of lower incisor made of gold. | The same, seen from below. |
The appliance found at Satricum (Fig. [31]) is made in the following manner: Two small plates of gold, stamped out, represent respectively the lingual and labial superficies of a middle lower incisor; these two pieces soldered together form the crown of the tooth. At its base the crown is soldered, back and front, to a narrow strip of gold which folds back on itself at each end, so as to tightly encircle the two neighboring teeth on the right and on the left, which thus serve as supports to the appliance.
We are now, therefore, able not only to affirm that the Etruscans knew how to execute a kind of bridge work, but that later the dentists of ancient Rome even carried out crown work.
This, notwithstanding the examples of dental prosthesis discovered up to now in Roman and Etruscan tombs, can in no way be considered as representing all the varieties of dental prosthesis of ancient construction. It is to be hoped that, in spite of the destructive action of time, in continuing the excavations and archæological researches, many other specimens of early dental prosthesis will yet come to light. In any case, judging by some indications to be found in Latin literature, it must be admitted that the Roman dentists of antiquity constructed other kinds of prosthesis besides the specimens we possess, and in particular movable dentures. We are led to suppose this, not only from the above cited epigram of Martial, but also from what we read in one of the satires of Horace, who dates contemporarily with Augustus, and therefore anteriorly to Martial. Speaking of two old witches who had been put to flight by Priapus, Horace writes: “You would have laughed to see those two old witches run toward the town, losing in their flight, Canidia, her false teeth, Sagania, her false hair.”[169]
Now, as Prof. Deneffe very rightly observes, the prosthetic appliances of antiquity known to us are so firmly fixed to the natural teeth that no race, however unbridled, could ever have made them fall out of the mouth. It must, therefore, be admitted, as I have said, that the ancients constructed other kinds of dental appliances, of which no specimens have, as yet, been discovered.
Neither in Celsus nor in Pliny, nor in any other Roman writers on medicine, do we find any allusion to the art of dentistry. The doctors of those days probably had no idea of the advantages which could be derived from dental prosthesis in regard to digestion and consequently to the health of the whole body. They therefore must have considered artificial teeth as something totally foreign to their art, and intended solely to hide a physical defect. It is therefore not at all surprising that they have not treated of this subject.
As the art of setting artificial teeth was exercised by persons not belonging to the medical profession, it is very probable that these persons also undertook the extraction of teeth and the cure of dental pains. Martial (Book X, Epigram LVI) names a certain Cascellius, who, he says, “extracts or cures diseased teeth,”[170] and this is the first dentist whose name has been sent down to us. In spite of this, nothing permits us to affirm that there existed at that time a class of real dentists, viz., of persons dedicated to the exclusive cure of dental disease. There are strong reasons for doubting this, especially when we consider that the Latin language has no word corresponding to the word dentist. If there had existed a true dental profession, there ought also to have existed a name for indicating the individuals who exercised it. Therefore, it must be considered highly probable that, although there undoubtedly existed individuals who were especially skilled in the cure of the diseases of the teeth, such persons did not form a special class; perhaps, among those to whom recourse was had for the cure of dental diseases, some were doctors, particularly skilled in such diseases, others were perhaps barbers, and so forth. As to the far-fetched deductions of Geist-Jacobi, according to whom the name given to dentists by the Romans must have been that of artifex dentium or artifex medicus dentium, these are founded, above all, on imagination. It is extremely improbable that such names existed, when one considers that they are not met with, even once, in the whole range of Latin literature.
Scribonius Largus. Among the writers on Medicine in the early period of the Empire, one of the most eminent was, without any doubt, Scribonius Largus, physician to the Emperor Claudius, whom he accompanied to England in the year 43.
Scribonius Largus, in his book De compositione medicamentorum, pronounces himself energetically against the division of Medicine into single special branches. He declaims against the many who attributed to themselves the name of doctors, simply because they knew how to cure some diseases. According to him, the true doctor must be skilled in curing all kinds of affections. This, in truth, was possible in those times, but would be almost impossible nowadays, on account of the enormous development of the healing art. The ideas, however, expressed by Scribonius Largus have a certain historical importance, for they show that in his times the medical art had certainly the tendency to split up into many special branches, among which there must certainly have been dentistry, but that the necessity of such separation was not by any means universally recognized; the great doctors of those days undertook the cure of the diseases of the teeth, as well as those of any other part of the body.