Sindecuse Spotlight- Artifacts from the extensive collection at the dental school’s Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry

Taggart Cast Inlay Machine

Circa: 1907 and after

Inventor: William H. Taggart, a Chicago dentist

Purpose: A cast inlay machine to fabricate dental prostheses such as crowns, fillings and other dental inlays. History: Taggart’s design was a groundbreaking improvement on the centuries-old practice of lost-wax casting. Dentists around the country embraced it immediately. It forced molten gold into a mold to create a more accurate gold casting. The mold was on a base and a gas flame supplied by the lower tube melted the metal in the casting ring at the base of the vertical plunger. The ring was lowered onto the mold with the wooden handle and compressed gas from the upper tube forced the metal into the mold. Before Taggart's invention, gold leaf was typically used for dental restorations, using a crude soldering technique, often with poor results. Thanks to Taggart, dentists were able to cast precise gold crowns and inlays, a huge step forward in the history of dentistry.

Epilogue: Taggart wasn’t prepared for his invention’s popularity. He obtained several patents and formed a company to manufacture the machines. However, he was slow in starting and several other companies came out with their own inlay machines. That prompted years of legal actions where Taggart attempted to collect payments from dentists who were using his inlay process but not his machine. At least one lawsuit he filed was successful, but most were not after the dental profession rose up in unison in defense of their right to use similar methods. Instead of becoming a wealthy icon held in high esteem by the profession, he was seen as a controversial figure who tried to monopolize the method he perfected. Even so, author M.D.K Bremner, who wrote the comprehensive book “The Story of Dentistry” in 1939 and successive editions, called Taggart’s invention “the greatest single contribution to dental progress that had been made by one man.”

Provenance: No record exists of the machine being donated to the Sindecuse, so it is likely that the dental school used this machine at some point and then it was saved for posterity.

More reading: The Journal of the American Dental Association, June 1959, pp. 162-73.