US1485306A - Dental bridgework - Google Patents

Description

J. J. STARK DENTAL BRIDGEWORK im.l ze, 1924. 1,485,306

Filed Dec. ff. 1922' y/llllllIllI/llllllll/ /lllIlll/Ylllllll/L'IJ A TTOR/VEYS Patented F eb. 25, i924.

JACOB J. STARK, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK,

DENTAL BRDGEWORK.

Application filed December 7, 1922. Serial No. 605,475.

To all whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, Jnoo'J. STARK, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the city of New York, borough of Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and Sta-te of New York, have invented certain'new and useful Improvements in Dental Bridgework, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description. y

This invention relates to dental bridge work, and more particularly aims to provide a new and improved means for removably mounting one or more artiiicial teeth between two natural teeth in the mouth.

The invention as preferably applied is used Vfor intradental work, that is, the natural teeth in the gums' form the anchorages for the female members, in any suitable way, as by means Well known in the art.

It is a fact well appreciated that much difiiculty has been experienced with such mountings as previously proposed, and especially those mountings in which the female members on the natural teeth and the male members carried by the removable bridge are both of T-shape, as is desirable, and with the head of the male member comprised of two substantially V-shape'd headvalves on oposite sides of the shank, each such half constructed of a unitary length of spring metal integral with the shank. Such a head as so constructed frequently requires manual adjustment of the opposite legs of the V, to increase or decrease the resilient pressure of these parts relative to the appropriate female mounting on the bridge. Repeated adjustments of this kind quickly fatigue the localized line of bend at the apex of the V, the head loses its required resiliency, and often a leg of the V will break on?.

An important object of the invention is to overcome this diiculty, as the result of making the head of the male member of such shape as to provide a multiplicity of bending points or lines; in other words, to make the head readily resiliently distortable and solely as the result of mounting the bridge in the mouth. Y

Another diiiiculty experienced with previous mountings of the above indicated character has been that if the spring-action of the head of a male member is set so that the bridge may be arranged in the mouth to avoid looseness detrimental to proper mastication and without danger of loosening the bridge accidentally, the bridge is rigidly male and female member anchored; and then the bridge is exceedingly uncomfortable, and it is incapable of a limited'movement relative to the natural teeth similar to that which nature provides for each naturaltooth relative to another.

A further object of the invention is Yto overcome this latter difficulty, also, While avoiding the necessity for a pivotal or loose connection between.V the shank of a male member and the anchoring natural tooth; which, it is obvious, is not desirable, although such pivotal or loose connection is favored to a large extent at present as'being a lesser evil than a bridge incapable of any relative movement'whatever.

According to the present invention, and as preferably carried out pursuant to the structure shown in the yaccompanying drawing, or an equivalent, this last-mentioned object is attained automatically by the provision of such structureto attain the first object mentioned. v Y

lVith these and various other objects in View, the invention consists in certain novel features of construction, and combinations and arrangements of parts, as will be hereinafter described and pointed out in theV claim.

In the accompanying drawing, which shows by way of example, a Vpossible structure according to the invention as at present preferred, and in which similar reference characters refer to similar parts throughout the several views: o

Fig. l is ahorizontal section, showing Y joined, and taken on the line l--l of Fig.l Y Y n Fig. 2 is a vertical section, taken on line 2 2 of Fig. l; A

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of the male member; and i Fig. l is a similar view of the female member.

The parts are shown on a scale in the drawing.

As shown best in Figs. 3 and 4, male or stud member 5 conforms to the convential construction in so far as the same is T- shaped in plan, is formed of an integral strip of material as illustrated, which material is preferably a spring metal, and has its T-head formed of two halves,r'each in` cluding two reversely bent portions; and female or socket member 6 also conforms to convential construction in-that the same has a tubular wall 7, a bottom 8 to establish a greatly enlarged general cup term, a cross-sectional area to receive snugly the head of the male member, and a slot 9 to take the root Yof the shank l() of the male member when the parts are assembled by sliding the head l1 of the male member down into the interior of member 6.

The constitution and construction ot each half ot head ll. ot member 5 are of the essence of the present invention; although a notch 12 cut inthe root ot shank l0 of the member 5, combined with the tact that the slot 9 of member 6 does not reach quite to the bottom of its cup, thereby to permit mounting.

the parts to be arranged with approximately leve-letop and bottom surface-s as shown in Fig. 2, is a valuable feature of the new Thus, it will be noted that member 5, in addition to the shank 10, includes a T-hcad, each arm of which includes a strip ot spring metal bent to Jform a spring bow, the concavities of said bows tacing each other and the tree ends ot the T-arms being substantially in line with the shank. Also, each such bow. at its Jfree end adjacent to the Yfree end ot the other bow,

carries rounded portions le adapted to slideY on each other when the bows are compressed toward the shank. These rounded portions are here inwardly directed cylindrical projections, which may conveniently be formed, as illustrated, by winding the transverse marginal lengths of the bows around pins or studs l5, soldered, welded, or otherwise secured in place.

AIt will thus be seen that the new male member structure includes a shank and integral resilient continuations :oppositely directed away trom the shank and then inwardly directed toward the same to form a plurality ot T-head portions each bendable at a multiplicity of points while resiliently resisting such bending. Otherwise stated, each half of the T-head, being abow, is bendable transversely along lines in a plurality of planes perpendicular to the plane of extension of the shank. Thus, each bowed spring'element at the T-head of the male member is warpable simultaneously at a plurality of points along the line of curvature of the bow. It has also been found that the head et the male member when thus directed has uortions resiliently relatively inovable to adapt the head for distortion both laterally of the shank, toward and away from the shank, and also rockable relative to the shank on an axis parallel to the line ot extension of the shank. The invention may be summed up in one word, as to its most salient characteristic, by pointing out that each halt oft the T-head of the male member is substantially U-shaped in plan and transversely resilient practically throughout its length` whereas the prior art device above discussed has a T-head each halt ot which is V-shaped in plan, and limited to a localized line of bend at the apex of the V, Jfor varying the resilient tendency of the T-head to increase its lateral dimensions; and, moreover, such variation is not automatically responsive to the main mounting of the bridge in the mouth, but must preliminarily be manually performed.

I would s1 ate in conclusion that while the illustrated example constitutes a practical embodiment of my invention, the same, as above indicated. is merely an example of one ot the multitude of ways in which. the same may be carried out; and I do not limit myself strictly to the exact details herein illustrated, since, manifestly, the construction may be considerably varied without departure from the spirit of the invention as dei-ined in the appended claim.

I claim:

In a device of the class described, a stud structure T-shaped in plan, said structure including a shank forming the T-stem and including a pair of resilient strip elements arranged side by side integral continuations ot said elements being oppositely directed away from, the stem and then inwardly directed toward the stem. to form a plurality ot Thead portions each bendable at a multiplicity ofV points to vary the shape of the stem while resiliently resisting such bending.

JACOB J. STARK.

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