Articulator - Dental Articulator 1840-1912

Dental Articulator 1840-1912

In 1840 the first US patent for dental articulators were issued to two Philadelphia, Pa dentist: James Cameron, and Daniley T. Evens. One glaring weakness that became evident shortly after its release was its inability to manage mandibular movement. Through the 1850s and 60's dental scientist investigated the nature of mandibular movement. By the 1900s the single hinge dental articulators became commonplace. It wasn't until 1910 that dentistry had its first articulator breakthrough due to the work of scientist like W.E. Walker, Alfred Gysi and George Snow. From their work two major schools of articulators developed. On one side there was the new condylar (anatomic)movement and on the other side there was the geometric (non anatomic) movement. The debate between anatomic and non anatomic is demonstrated in this article for an articulator that boasted a simple design.