Histologic evidence of developmental lesions in teeth originating from paleolithic, prehistoric, and ancient man.

A century ago Czermiak1 discovered in microscopic sections of human teeth the so-called interglobular dentin spaces (Figs. i and 2). The pathologic significance of this condition remained uncertain until the late twenties when Mellanby2 reported her conclusive experiments indicating that comparable defects could be produced in dogs' teeth by introducing deficiencies in the calcifying property of the diet fed to the animals during the period of tooth development. Since then it has become well established that the human dentition, during formation and calcification, is very sensitive to nutritional as well as to many other metabolic disturbances. However, it is noteworthy that such defects are exceedingly rare in certain subhuman primates such as the wild rhesus monkey. In the course of the last io years I have prepared numerous sections of the teeth of these animals and have consistently found a remarkably uniform and perfect microstructure of the dentin and enamel of their teeth (Figs. 3 and 4). It has been a matter of speculation whether the teeth of man might have been of a superior developmental structure in former times and in various parts of the world, whenever and wherever dental caries is known to have been absent, infrequent, or less prevalent than today. This problem appeared to be both interesting and feasible to explore. Not only do teeth retain permanent histologic evidence throughout the life of an individual regarding the original developmental quality, but teeth are at the same time sufficiently well preserved for long periods of time after death to be prepared for microscopic sections by means of special histologic procedures.3 The present investigation represents an exploratory histologic survey of the developmental quality of human teeth originating from earlier periods of time and various parts of the world; namely, Paleolithic Palestine, prehistoric Greece, predynastic Egypt, ancient Iceland, and middle age Norway from the old world, and Guatemalan and Pecos Indian teeth from the new world (Table I). Further details regarding the material and methods have been recorded in a previous report,4 in which various post-mortem changes in the histologic appear-