Rapport sur les dents artificielles terro-métalliques.

Fonzi, an Italian dentist living in Paris, produced the first sets of individual porcelain teeth mounted on a base. "While previously the entire mineral denture, both base and teeth, had been fired as a single piece, Fonzi in 1808 published a method for the manufacture of individual teeth with platinum hooks fired into them. . . . With the invention of these “Dents terro-metalliques” . . . which could be soldered to a metal bar, the determining step towards modern dental prosthetics had been taken (Hofmann-Axthelm, History of Dentistry, p. 256). Fonzi also discovered a method using a combination of procelain paste and various metallic oxides, of partially imitating the semitransparent tint peculiar to natural teeth. His artificial teeth could be manufactured in a range of natural colors. See Guerini, Life and Works of Giuseppangelo Fonzi (1925).