A history of dentistry from the most ancient times until the end of the eighteenth century / by Dr. Vincenzo Guerini ... with 104 engravings and 20 plates.

  • Guerini, Vincenzo, 1859-1955.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of dentistry from the most ancient times until the end of the eighteenth century / by Dr. Vincenzo Guerini ... with 104 engravings and 20 plates. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    his collection of antiquities, a tooth pivoted on to the root of a mummy's tooth, the question suggests itself naturally: If this tooth is, as it appears, separated from the jaw of the mummy to which it is said to have belonged, how can we be certain that the tooth itself is really that of a mummy? Until sufficient proof of this be furnished, we cannot but consider the above assertion as absolutely without value/ The same may be said as to the assertions of Wilkinson and Forbes with regard to mummies' teeth stopped with gold. Where and by whom were these mummies found ? And where are they preserved ? Was the stopping, too, verified at the time of the finding of the mummy, in such a manner as to exclude all possibility of fraud, or was it discovered afterward, in circumstances such as to suggest the possibility of a misti- fication ? It has, in fact, been reported^ that the pretended Egyptian stopping in a mummy existing in an English museum was nothing else than a practical joke, carried out, besides, in a very awkward manner. In opposition to the above assertions, we have the most absolute con- tradictory statements on the part of the most competent authorities. The celebrated Egyptologist, Prof. George Ebers, has only been able, in spite of the most accurate research, to arrive at completely negative results in all that has reference to the dental art of the ancient Egyptians.^ ^ [The oft-quoted statements of Mr. Purland with reference to Egyptian dental art are recorded in the transactions of the first monthly meeting of the College of Dentists, an extinct English dental association, and published in the Quarterly Journal of Dental Science, 1857, vol. i, p. 49, where the following note by the secretary appears: Mr. Purland repudiated the idea of the Chinese having been the first to manufacture teeth, and referred to numerous specimens in the British Museum, manufactured between four thousand and five thousand years ago by the Egyptians, who he considered were the original makers. On the subject of flint, Mr. Purland said he had discovered pieces of wood in the centre, and remarked upon the aitificial teeth he had found in mummies. Again, at page 63 of the same journal, in an article entitled Dental Memoranda, by T. Purland, Dentist, Ph.D., the author says: Belzoni and others discovered rudely manufactured teeth in the sarcophagi of the Egyptians. As regards the use of gold leaf. Sir Gardner Wilkinson observes, as a singular fact, that the Egyptians stopped teeth with gold. It is true that rudely manufactured teeth have been found in the heads of Egyptian mummies, but it is equally true that teeth of a very superior make and adaptation have also been found, some carved in ivory, others in sycamore wood, and some have been found fixed upon gold plates. Of these varieties, some are deposited in the valuable and extensive museum belonging to Joseph Mayer, Esq., F.S.A., of Liverpool; others are in the museums of Berlin and Paris, and I am in possession of a tooth found pivoted to a stump in the head of a mummy in the collection of a lamented friend. Of stopping with gold, several instances have come to my notice, particularly in a mummy in the Salt collection, sold by Sotheby, in 1836, in which three teeth had been stopped. I have endeavored to trace the mummy, but in vain.—E. C. K.] ^ Giornale di Corrispondenza pei Dentisti, October, 1885, p. 229. ^ Geist-Jacobi, Geschichte der Zahnheilkunde, p. 9.