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1 History of Veterinary Dentistry, Including Development of Oral and Dental Treatment of Wild and Zoo, Safari Park and Refuge Animals

       Colin E. Harvey

       Surgery and Dentistry School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

      This review is limited to a narrow definition of dentistry – conditions affecting the teeth, periodontium and jaws, and treatment of these structures. Mention of the major infectious oral diseases that affect wild, as well as domestic herbivores, such as viral stomatitis for example, are not included.

      Veterinary dental history can be considered as having two major periods, the first in which the horse was the focus of most attention, because of its importance for transportation, mechanical power, military use and sport. The jaws and teeth were important because bits are used to control speed and direction of motion in horses. The internal combustion engine was invented in the mid‐1850s; by the early 1990s, this form of transportation and mechanical power was rapidly displacing the horse and, as a result, equine dentistry no longer has the critical societal importance it once had.

      The second period is ongoing, and is largely based on application of human dental procedures to pet domestic animals. As experience with these procedures, initially in dogs, grew, they started to be applied to non‐domesticated species by a pioneering group of human dentists and veterinarians. Experience with dental treatment of food animals is largely limited to management of tooth loss in sheep.

      We only have a very incomplete glimpse of what was known about animal dentistry in the ancient world, because much of the records have been lost. The fire in the largest library of the ancient world, at Alexandria in 48 BCE, was catastrophic – 700 000 volumes were lost.

      The ancient Greeks produced several important veterinary manuscripts, such as “The Veterinary Art, Inspection of Horses,” by Simon of Athens (430 BCE), which includes an accurate description of eruption times and aging of horses by examination of the teeth. Aristotle's “History of Animals'” (333 BCE) also includes a section on aging by teeth of horses, and comments on periodontal diseases in horses.

      The Roman Empire produced some practical veterinary material, though much of it was copied from Greek sources. Around 400 CE, Chiron wrote a series of books on animals; Book VI includes material on tumors of the jaw, diseases of the teeth and management of fractured jaws, and Book VIII includes a description of the dentition. “The Veterinary Art” by Vegetius (450–500 CE) is the major Roman veterinary contribution; it describes use of splints for managing broken jaws, and aging of horses by teeth; this manuscript was translated and printed as a book one thousand years later, in 1528 – one of the first veterinary books printed.

      Written c550–580 CE, originally in Sanskrit, the work of Ippocras was translated into Greek or Arabic in the ninth century, then from Arabic to Latin – it is now known to exist only as a fifteenth‐century manuscript in Latin; it includes a section on determining the age of the horse by examining the teeth, and vices and bit injuries, also an operation for “chesel,” which is extraction or shortening of the tushes (canines) and corner incisors to accommodate the bit.

      With the degeneration of the Greek and Roman empires, the focus of learning shifted eastward to the Byzantine Empire. In about 950 CE, the “Hippiatrika” was written by order of Emperor Constantine VII. This tome contained all Greek and Latin veterinary manuscripts in Constantinople, collected and arranged; it includes a section on Dentition. It was translated by Ruellius from Greek to Latin and printed in 1530 in Paris.

      The fascination of Arabs with horses was recognized in some important manuscripts; one, written about 1100 CE by Ibn‐al‐Awan in Spain, includes a section on dentition. Around 1200 CE, Abou Bekr produced “The Naceri” in Egypt; Book 11 includes a section on dentition and dental operations.

Beyond the translation of ancient sources, there was very little real progress for about one thousand years, until, starting in the thirteenth century in Italy, ancient manuscripts translated into Italian also began to include personal observations of the translator. Ruffus wrote “Equine Medicine” in 1250, and Rusius wrote “Hippiatria” about 70 years later; the latter includes sections on dentition and descriptions of lampas, cutting the lip to accommodate the bit, and an “operation on the teeth to improve the temper” (extraction of lower canines and corner incisors). Later, came the equine anatomical masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci and Ruini. Though these were important contributions to the veterinary knowledge base, there was little that was new in the field of clinical veterinary dentistry.

      Northern Europe was largely an intellectual backwater regarding veterinary medicine until late in the eighteenth century. Available written materials include an early manuscript written in Britain in about 1000 CE entitled “The Medicine of Quadrupeds,” which is largely a compilation from earlier Roman manuscripts. As an example of what now seems ridiculous, from the 1723 edition of a book originally published in 1610: “A horse may have pain in his teeth through diverse occasions, as partly by the descent of gross humors from the head down to the teeth and gums.”

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