Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1884 — OUR IVORIES. [ARTICLE]

OUR IVORIES.

Facts and Fictions in the Phi’osophy of Tooth-Growing. Some old folks cut their teeth when far advanced toward centenariani°m. An old woman living near New Haven cut an incisive tc oth in the lower jaw when 75 years old; it confirmed a strange hallucination with which she had long been possessed—that she had ""been dead and was come to life again, with the usual infantile carrer of teething, etc. Another lady living in Philadelphia about a dozen of yea’rs ago cut an entirely new set of teeth when about BO years old, after having been many years toothless. In 1832 a woman in Richmond cut eight new' teeth in the 87th year of her age—thus winding up a toothless period of many years. A dame of Boston, after being toothless irom 70 to 90 years of age, cut several new teeth. Edward Progers, aged 96, died in 1713 of the anguish of cutting teeth, and had several ready to cut which so inflamed his gums that he died thereof. As if to take revenge for these duplications, or rather triplications of teething, nature sometimes requires us to dispense with dental apparatus altogether. At a London cemetery there is the following epitaph: “Elizabeth Cook, a poor woman, aged 86, and who never had a tooth, was buried June 11, 1798." On the other hand, somo talks greatly exceed the orthodox number of thirty-two. Dumpier, in his account of the Phillippine Islands, says: “The next day the Sultan came on board again, and presented our captain with a little boy; but he was too small to be serviceable on board, and so the captain returned thanks and told him he was too little for him. Then the Sultan sent a bigger boy, which the captain accepted. This boy was a very pretty, tractable boy, but what was wonderful in him he had two rows of teeth, one within another, in each jaw. None of the other people were so, nor did I ever see the like.” The pearly teeth of the poet and novelist would not be valued by some of the Eastern and Polynesian nations. The Chinese blacken their teeth by chewing the fruit of or betel nut. The Tonquinese and Siamese beaux and belles, in bringing about the same result by nearly the same means, almost starve themselves for three or four days, while the dyeing is going on, lest the food should disturb the dye. The Sunda Islanders sometimes blacken all the teeth but two with burned cocoanut, covering the two excepted teeth with thin plates of gold or silver. The Macassar people sometimes pull out two front teeth in order to supply their place with teeth of pure gold or silver. Two Italian girls, twins, have been known to have had natural teeth of a light red rose color—-both the milk teeth and those which succeeded them. The charms, omens, signs, panaceas relating to the teeth constitute quite a formidable item in folk lore. In some parts of the country there is a superstition that if you put on your right stocking, right shoe, and fight trouser leg before the left you will never have toothache. To drink out of a skull taken 'from a graveyard; to take a tooth from such a skull and wear it around the neck; to apply the tooth to your own living but aching tooth; to put a double nut into your pocket; to pare your finger-nails and toe-nails, and wrap up the parings in paper—all are charms against the toothache. If you catch a mole in a trap, cut off one of liis paws, and wear it as a charm, you will soon see the effect, provided a right paw be used for a left tooth, and vice verpa. When an aching tooth is ex-

tracted mix it with salt and burn it. There is a certain custom of calling the toothache the “love pain," for which the sufferer is not entitled to any commiseration- -whether he (or she) fully assents to this may perhaps be doubted. Many othcT items of tooth lore have no connection with toothache. For instance if the teeth are set wide apart there will bis good luck and plenty of traveling fdr the fortunate possesjor. When a tooth is drawn, if you refrain from thrusting your tongue into the cavity the new tooth to grow in its place will be a lucky one. A letter written in 1713 by a lady to her son spoke of the ( efficacy of wolves’ teeth set in gold to assist children in catting teeth.

Why do some people’s teeth come out more readily than others? The reasons for this are probably many. About the middle of the last century Peter Kalm, a Swede, visited the United States and wrote sensibly about what Jje saw. He observed a frequent loss of teeth among settlers frjom Europe, especially woman. After discussing and rejecting many modes of explanation, he attributed it to hot tea and other hot beverages, and came to a general conclusion that “hot feeders lose their teeth more readily than cold feeders.” He also noticed that ‘‘the American Indians have better teqtli than the whites.” He accounts for the difference in this strange way: that the reds keep the mouth shut, whereas the whites keep it open. The teeth, he says, require moisture to keep their surfaces in good working order; when the mouth is open the mucus membrane has a tendency to dry up, the teeth loose their needed supply of moisture, aud thence come discoloration, toothache, decay, looseness, and eventual loss of teeth. He scolds the human race generally*■ for being less sensible than the brutes in this respect, and the white race specially in comparison with the red. We keep our mouths open far too much; the Indian warrior sleeps, hunts, and smiles with his mouth shut, and respires through the nostrils. Among the virtues attributed by him to closed lips one is excellent-r when you are angry keep your mouth shut There is reason to believe that the Greeks and Romans knew something about false teeth. Martial, in one of his epigrams, says that Thais’ teeth were discolored, while Lecania’s were white. Why? Because the former wore her own teeth, whereas the latter wore those of some other person. There was an old Roman law which allowed the gold settings of false teeth, or the gold with which they were bound, to be buried or burned with the deceased. There is also some indication that the Greeks were not to extract teeth and to fill up decayed teeth with gold. The &unda Islanders at the present day are in the habit of employing their old women to dress up the teeth of the youths and maidens at wooing time; the canine teeth are filed to a fine, smooth edge, and the body of the tooth made concave, or they will notch the edge of the teeth like a fine saw, as an additional means of beautifying. An imperial toothache once made the fortune of a poor barber. The late Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Aziz, having a touch of toothache one day, seat for the court physician; lie was hunted and could uot be found. The domestic hurried about Constantinople and at length found a poor, ragged, barber-surgeon; they took him to the palace and furbished him up. He drew the offending tooth, and soothed the pain of the Commander of the Faithful. Whereupon a nice house and S6O a month was awarded to him.

During the days of body-snatchers, when graveyards were subjected to pillage for supplying anatomists with subjects for dissection, the teeth from the dead bodies formed a frequent article of sale to dentists. Sometimes graves were opened for the teeth alone, as being small and easily concealed articles. The making of artificial teeth is a trade in which a large amount of ingenuity is displayed, both in the adaptation of new substance and in the mode of shaping and,finishing. When artificial teeth began to be made, instead of using the natural teeth of dead persons, they were made of bone, or the more costly kind of ivory, from the tusks of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, walrus, or narahal. If only-a single tooth were wanted it was customary to cut a bit of bone to the proper shape, and tie it to the next tooth by a ligature of wire. It is still found that tusk bone possesses the best combination of properties. It combines, as a learned authority in the dental world tells us, “lightness, strength, and solidity, with a natural appearance and a certain congeniality to the mouth, possessed by no other material, which render both partial pieces and entire seti at once the most useful substitutes for the lost natural teeth." The mechanical dentist must be a genuine workman. When he is abont to make bone or ivory teeth he cuts a tusk into pieceß and shapes each piece by an elaborate series of mechanical processes. Sometimes, for a customer who has plenty of dollars to spare, he will make a whole set, upper or lower, as the case may be, out of one piece. He saws his block of ivory roughly to the size, and then, with infinite patience, files and graves it into shape. He has at hand a model of the patient’s gum and works to that model with exactness. The teeth are not separate pieces; they are cut into apparent rather than real separation, like the teeth of a comb. An artistic workman will take care that the teeth shall present some of that irregularity which our natural grinders always exhibit; a learner falls into the mistake of making them too good. Many persons do not like to wear dead people’s teeth—there is something uncomfortable in the idea; there is also frequently a germ of decay in such teeth, and these two reasons led to the custom of making artificially ivory teeth. Ivory, with all of its excellences, becomes discolored, and hence the chief motive of making teeth of certain mineral or vegetable compositions. There is, in fact, a sort of triangular duel going, on among the ivory dentists, mineral dentists, knd vegetable dentists, each class fighting stoutly against both of the others. •> Whether your dentist really makes

the teeth which lie inserts in your cranium is a question he does not deem it necessary to ans\yqtC jfn truth he very tarely does anything of the kind. There are certain dealers who sell sets of teeth, half sets twos, or threes, singles or Rubles, front or back, top or bottom, finished or unfinished, as well as all the apparatus and tools Required for the diutist’s art. And some of these dealers themselves are supplied by manufactures who conduct operations on a considerable scale. The United States is ahead of all other countries in this art. A recent computation makes the number of artificial teeth fabricated here as high as 6,000,000 annually—symbols (according to some folks’ notions) of 6,000,000 attacks of toothache. In one of the largest and most complete factories, where mineral teeth are made, the chief ingredients compr.se feldspar, silica, and clay; those of subsidiary character are sundry metallic oxides, to produce those tints of discoloration which are necessary to make the imitation a good one. The feldspar, silica, and clay are ground to an impalpable powder under water, then dried and made into a paste. The teeth are cast in brass molds, varied in size and shape to suit the requirements of the mouth. A special kind of paste, to form the enamels is first put into the mold with a small steel spatula; the platinum rivets, by which the teeth are to be fastened, are adjusted in position, and then the paste forming the body of the tooth is introduced until the mold is filled up. Next ensues powerful pressure and drying. When removed from the mould the tooth goes through a process called hiscuitinc (analagous to a particular stage in porcelain manufacture), in which state it can be cut like chalk. It i 3 then sent to tho trimmer, who scrapes off all roughness and unnecessary projections, and fills up any depressions which may have been lett in the operation of moulding. A wash called enamel is made by selecting various ingredients more fusible than those of the tooth, grinding them to fine powder with water, and applying the thick liquid as paint by means of a camel’s-hair pencil. The tooth then goes to the gummor, who applies a gum composed of oxide of gold and other ingredients. At length heat is applied. The tooth, when dried, is put into a muffle or enameler's oven, where it is placed on a layer of crushed quartz strewn over a slab of fire-resist-ing clay. After being exposed for a time to an intense heat the tooth is taken out and cooled—and there it is, beautiful forever. —Brooklyn Eagle.