(ORDO NEWS) — 400 years after the death of a French aristocrat, scientists have revealed her secret: she used gold wire to prevent her teeth from falling out.
The body of Anne d’Alegre, who died in 1619, was discovered in an archaeological dig at the Château de Laval in northwestern France in 1988.
The embalmed corpse, which was kept in a lead coffin, was perfectly preserved, this allowed scientists to quickly discover that the Dowager Countess Laval used an ivory denture, although it was not possible at that time to study it in detail without damaging the priceless find.
Thirty-five years later, a team of archaeologists and physicians from France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research scanned the skull of the deceased woman, discovering that during her lifetime she suffered from periodontitis, which caused her teeth to become loose.
The doctor who treated her used thin gold wire to tie and fasten together several of her real teeth and one artificial tooth made of ivory.
However, in fact, the “treatment” only made the patient worse, the researchers say: not only did the operation have an exclusively cosmetic effect, but also the gold wire had to be regularly tightened, further loosening the remaining intact teeth.
However, the Dowager Countess Laval probably deliberately went for this painful operation, because during her life the value of a woman was largely determined by external beauty.
Ambroise Pare, a contemporary of Anna d’Alegre, who treated persons of royal blood and designed some types of dentures, argued that the absence of teeth makes the patient’s speech “perverted”.
Loss of status in society due to a handicap would be a death sentence for a French socialite with a dubious reputation, married twice and outlived both spouses.
Anna d’Alegre lived in a troubled time for France during the religious wars, fell into royal disfavor and lost her only son when he went to fight in Hungary.
The condition of her teeth suggests that the woman lived in constant stress that crippled her health, and at the age of 54, the Dowager Countess died of an illness.
Perhaps dental problems were one of her many everyday problems, but she continued to use dentures until the end of her days, so as not to allow others to accuse herself of “depravity”.
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