Chemical analysis of human teeth.

THE dental literature contains numerous articles concerning the chemical analysis of human teeth.1-9 Most of this work was done in the early 1930's. Naturally, in these analyses the common chemical methods and procedures known at the time were used. Recently, a request was received for an analysis of some Greek teeth to compare their chemical compositions with that of domestic teeth. In recent years new methods in analytical chemistry have been developed which make the analysis of calcium, magnesium and phosphorus easier, faster, and more accurate. In this investigation some of these new methods have been applied. It is the purpose of this report to describe these methods and the compositions obtained. Some investigators" have shown that the composition of enamel and dentine of the teeth of one person may vary as much as that obtained from the teeth of several individuals. Others2 have shown that even the difference between the chemical compositions of well-developed and hypoplastic enamel is of the same order as the difference between one individual and another. Thus, the sampling of human teeth for chemical analysis is quite important. In this analysis, 10 domestic and 10 Greek teeth were crushed separately and the results reported represent an average value for each group. The human tooth is made up largely of inorganic material, and many investigators have analyzed only this portion of enamel and dentin. However, teeth contain organic as well as inorganic components, and some investigators, such as Deakins and Volker,3 have reported the organic content of the enamel of human teeth. This report describes only the determination of the inorganic content of enamel and dentin. After analyzing the inorganic part of human teeth, different investigators tried to assign a chemical formula to this structure. As a result, 3 rather important formulas have been given to tooth structure.