Cast coin silver lower splint
Maker
Kenneth Russell (b.1885, d.1945)
Date
Circa 1917
Description
This is a lower splint made of cast coin silver mounted on a black painted plaster base. Metal clasps enabled the splint to be attached and removed from the back teeth - the clasps could be screwed onto the teeth and loosened for removal. Coin silver was used because of its tastelessness, cleanliness, and resistance to erosion. The patient would have lost portions of the bone in the front lower jaw as well as soft tissue, treated by the attachment of compression compound moulds at the front of the splint to remodel the chin. This compound does not remain on the object. The appliance would have been used in the kind of treatment depicted by Daryl Lindsay in the 1918 watercolours 'Pte Randy before operation' and 'Pte Randy after operation,' copies of which are held in the hard file on Major Russell.
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