Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1868-06-05

THE MANUFACTURE OF PORCE-
LAIN TEETH

MESsRs. EDITORS Perhaps but few
persons stop to consider the rapid growth
and extent of this business in the United
States. five search for the germ of this
comparatively new subject Of production
and sale, we shall be obliged to go some dis
tance. have Seen a tooth taken from the
alveolus Of an Alexandra mummy (some
leek eating cotemparary of Pharaoh and
Moses, may be-, brought by DR.. Gliddon,
which had been plugged with gold. Occa-
sional hints are furnished to rs by other ex
plantations, that our ancestors attempted
the preservation or replacement of lost
grinders, but the evidence is so distant and
so uncertain; that they must be considered
rather as occasional incidents than reliable
details Human nature, always ashamed OF
the ravages of time or the effect OF acci-
dent, has been faithful to its instincts, and
men aud women have disguised the loss of
an incisor by bits of bone and other materi-
al. Ivory was, until lately, the favorite
substance to b used as a substitute for a
decayed molar Volney, Ohateaubriand;
and the elder Pitt, were not ashamed to
make their countenauces look slightly by
these artificial requirements. | once heard
the late Rembrandt Peale account for the
material difference that appeared in the
two pictures of General Washington; one Of
them having been painted when the false
teeth were IN his mouth, aud the other
when they we're not Washington teeth
were made of bone, and so were most of ar
tifcal substitutes forty or fifty years ago,
but it soon became evident TO tooth sculp-
tors that something less liable to decay
was necessary, and our French neighbOrs
deserve the credit for devislng the present
popular substitute.
About the year 1865, one Pierre Lavouse,
a workman from the Imperial Porcelain
Works at Sevres, made some rude imita-
tiOns of the natural teeth, and made them
of the same material of which the French
and German soft porcelain is made, but
the art of making artificial dentures Ian
guished until the incident / am about to de-
tail transpired in 1893, sixty years after
wards.
At the date have mentioned there was a
little store in Second street, in this city,
which was occupied by man who did a
little in dentistry, and eked out living
somehow, by mending watches, selling spec
tacles, etc. The education of the owner OF
| the little shop was defective, and he devils
/ ed all kinds Of expedients to produce some
/ substance to be used in lieu of bone from
/ which to make the artificial teeth. He was
at his wit S end, when one evening as he was
I closing his shutters drunken Holander,
named Van Pelt, staggered into the place.
! The man was we'll acquainted with the man
ner ofmaking porcelain, and for twenty five
cents offered 70 instruct the repairer Of old
watches, so that he could make porcelain
teeth Van Pelt wanted his whisky. The
ambitious dentist embraced the offer, paid
the Hollander the quarter, and the next
day burned his face and fingers by beginning
to make molars for the million. so strange
ly do small causes operate.
From this visit Of the ingenious drunkard
we may date the origin Of this kind Of man
uiacture in the United States After forty
years of vicissitude and experiment the
amount of labor and capital IN this hitherto
new business must astonish the statisticlan.
| The Revenue Tax paid to the government
upon this branch Of manufacture exceeds a
quarter of million dollars yearly. More
than six hundred men and women-exclu-
slve Of dental-chaIr makers, quarrymen, III
strument makers, gold foil beaters, plaster
of Paris makers, makers of tin loil, of vul-
canizes, of emery and corundum wheels, etc.
which, with their families, make an ag-
gregate of say five thousand souls, enough
to make a village of sufficient size to claim
the honors of a Burgess or Mayor-get
their bread from this source alone. The
capital invested in this business furnishes 10
mean item of the social wealth. In passing
through these factories you miss the machl-
merry, the ponderous iron wheels visible In
other manufactures, but your custodian
shows to you a pile of brass, and as he
clanks the iron door open, tells you that
| these are his "molds Little things they
are, weighing a pound or so, but as each of
them Is worth hundred dollars, and as
there are some thousands of them, they
cost something, you see, mon ana. And the
furnaces too, huge structures sixty or sew.
enty feet high, built with care and skill
and lined with soapstoue, excite curiosity
The constituents, or as the profound call
them, the molecular atoms, which make
an artificial tooth, are few and simple
Feldspar, silex and kaelin, and little fux,
make the body and enamel, and the partic-
ular TIM and color are impaired by some Of
the oxides Of metals, the oxide of silver,
making a straw or lemon color, iron making
a brown, cobalt blue, titanium a yellow,
etc. Sometimes the colors are impaired
with brush TO the surface of the tooth,
but usually the color is mixed with the
body or mass of the materials before it is
nodded. The most difficulty is experienced
10 preparing the gum color This substance,
called Purple Of Cassius' by the chemists,
appears to be a sort of terra inc0gaita to the
students in that science. They conjecture
that it Ii an qziael bat all Of them heaitRts