Orthodontics in antiquity: myth or reality.

Malocclusion, although a common finding in today's world, appears to have been less frequent in antiquity. There are references to overcrowding, delayed exfoliation of deciduous teeth and basic orthodontic treatment in the writings of classical authors such as Hippocrates, Celsus and Galen. However, early authentic archaeological finds of dental appliances are extremely rare. Considerable attention has focussed on gold banded devices excavated from ancient Etruscan sites in central Italy which have been dated to around the seventh to the fourth centuries BC, with a number of authors suggesting an orthodontic function for these appliances. This paper reviews the evidence for the possible treatment of malocclusions in antiquity and concludes that the use of orthodontic appliances to facilitate tooth movement is not supported by the available evidence.

Evolution of esthetic considerations in orthodontics.

The importance of facial esthetics to the practice of orthodontics has its origins at the beginning of our specialty. In 1900, Edward H. Angle believed that an esthetic or a "harmonious" face required a full complement of teeth, but many who came after him questioned this notion. In the 1930s, the development of cephalometrics laid the foundation for studying growth and development, treatment effects, facial forms, and esthetics. By the 1950s, the importance of diagnosing and planning treatment for an esthetic result was established, but the measurement of soft tissue variables was lacking, and this became an important area of research. In the 1970s, researchers were looking at the stability of hard tissue changes over time, and they were also interested in how the soft tissues change with age. Although the early studies of esthetics in orthodontic treatment focused on how clinicians viewed their patients, changing demographics and cultural attitudes led researchers to look more seriously at consumer preferences and the public's attitudes. Their findings--that consumers preferred fuller lips--led to a swing back toward nonextraction treatment. Expansion appliances and molar distalization techniques became popular, and surgical procedures to obtain more ideal esthetic results became more common. Since the 1990s, advances in computers and technology have allowed us to study, predict, and produce esthetic results previously thought unattainable. Today, more so than at any other time in our specialty, we have the ability to provide esthetic results to our patients.

A century of influence: Part 2. The greatest generation.

The story of orthodontics during the first 100 years of Journal publication can be told through the people who lived it. As part of the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics' Centennial celebration, we present 100 people who most influenced the specialty during the last 100 years. Part 2 picks up with "the greatest generation" and describes those born in the first 2 decades of the 20th century. Whether born in Europe or the United States, their lives and educations were disrupted by world war. Many served during the years of conflict, and a few paid an even heavier price. After World War II, they returned home or immigrated to the United States and resumed their life's work in orthodontics.

The contributions of Edward H. Angle to dental public health.

The genius of Edward Hartley Angle, (1855-1930), the founder of the dental specialty of orthodontics, to create order from chaos in the study and treatment of positional discrepancies of the teeth, jaws and face advanced greatly the cause of dental public health. Angle's innovations that had the most public health impact were (1) his identification of dental occlusion, not simply tooth irregularity, as a prime concern, (2) his development of an uncomplicated classification system for occlusal conditions, (3) his introduction of prefabricated orthodontic appliances and (4) his framing of orthodontics as a dental specialty by organizing the world's first educational program to train orthodontists.

Orthodontics in 3 millennia. Chapter 16: Late 20th-century fixed appliances.

Ever since Edward Angle introduced his edgewise appliance in 1925, orthodontic innovators have been working to improve on not only its original design, but also the method of attachment. Our "strap-ups" have evolved from banding to bonding, from labial to lingual, and from metallic to clear. But, as Angle would be pleased to learn, we still call it edgewise.

[Evolution of orthodontic appliances from 1728 to 2007. Inaugural Conference of the 79th Scientific Meeting of the SFODF at Versailles, 31 May 2007]. / L'évolution des appareils orthodontiques de 1728 à 2007. Conférence inaugurale de la 79ème réunion scientifique de la SFODF à Versailles, le 31 mai 2007.

The nature of orthodontic appliances depends, in part, on the development of therapeutic ideas and also on the materials and techniques that are available to practitioners. The first mechanisms appeared in 1728; they were attached to teeth by ligatures. Removable appliances, made of metal, ivory and, later, vulcanite developed as soon as practitioners became capable of taking reliable impressions, an epoch that began in 1840. A multiplicity of fixed appliances was introduced after the invention of a dental cement that could be used to attach them to teeth in 1871. But even before that, in 1860, dentists had begun to modify the form and the position of basal bone and to construct intra- and extra-oral appliances to accomplish this. And it wasn't until 1916 that Angle introduced the first bracket that allowed orthodontists to apply a couple of forces to teeth. For the most part, a new appliance didn't replace an older one. It was simply added to the armamentarium, which explains why we now have such a great diversity of systems at our disposal, and the imprecision of the indications for the use of many of them.

How we got from there to here and back.

Edward H. Angle dominated orthodontic armamentarium, diagnosis and treatment planning for almost a half century until Charles Tweed successfully challenged his mentor's nonextraction mantra. The ensuing diagnostic regimen used by Tweed, however, proved to have serious limnitations and clearly resulted in the extraction of too many teeth. This caused a subsequent deterioration of soft tissue appearances of patients that neither they nor their doctors liked. This article will describe and illustrate how new expansion techniques differ qualitatively from those of Angle, and how these techniques offer patients and doctors less invasive and more comfortable therapies which do not jeopardize facial appearances.

O aparelho pré-ajustado: sua evolução e suas prescrições / The pre-adjusted appliance: evolution and prescriptions

Este trabalho revisou as prescrições de braquetes pré-ajustados existentes no mercado, abordando as variações dos valores de inclinação, angulação e rotação dentária. A revisão reporta desde a origem do conceito de uso de arcos retangulares em acessórios com secções retangulares até os atuais modelos de braquetes autoligados e outros braquetes com formatos diferenciados.