Dentist - A pile of smiles 1876

by Mike Savad

Title

Dentist - A pile of smiles 1876

Artist

Mike Savad

Medium

Photograph - Colorized Photo

Description

Colorized photo from 1876
Original Title: Justi's exhibit-Main Building
Photographer: Centennial Photographic Co.
Location: 4231 Avenue of the Republic, Philadelphia PA

This is the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, located in Philadelphia, PA, it was the first Worlds fair held in the United States. It ran for 6 months, and had 10 million visitors. There was a total of 37 countries represented there, and had 14,420 businesses showing off their wares. This show some of the inventions introduced were the telephone, typewriter and sewing machine.

This particularly unusual exhibit is the HD Justi tooth display. Featuring a lot of teeth, so much that a tooth fairy would be rich, only they are counterfeit teeth as they are not real teeth. HD Justi created these porcelain teeth by molding them. Originally he started working in the cutlery and surgical instrument business.

When dentists create new false teeth, they start by making a mold of your teeth with something wet or soft, then they work their dental magic to make new teeth. The teeth are set into a jaw like mold and attached to a mechanism that holds it all in place, it looks like a jaw like mechanism. Anyway, Justi built or fixed those devices.

Dentists in the 1870s would use a dental tray (similar to what they use now), plaster and a bit of wax for detail). They would mold this over your teeth. They would fill that with a porous material, and then when removed, the rough casting would be reshaped by the dentist, and it would take hours of work to get it done.

When Justi saw this he had a better idea, to create a mold and to formulate a new kind of porcelain that was smooth and solid, and had the color of teeth. His method took a fraction of the time to make. He was hired as a mold cutter and then later patented his idea.

He had a very large selection as you can see here. This case actually won an award, and went on to travel to other places.

Uploaded

June 16th, 2022

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