Zoo and Wild Animal Dentistry

Peter P. Emily, Edward R. Eisner, Peter P. Emily, Edward R. Eisner

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781119545811
• eBook ISBN: 9781119545873
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Veterinary Medicine

Zoo and Wild Animal Dentistry is the first book to offer a comprehensive reference to oral pathology and dental therapy in captive and wild exotic animals.Comprehensive in scope, the book is authored by noted experts on the topic who cover dental care for a broad range of species with an emphasis on oral health. Designed as a practical resource for treating exotic animals, the book is filled with instructive photographs and illustrations that clearly depict pathologies and demonstrate techniques.

The book draws on the editors' and contributors' years of experience with exotic animals to offer a reliable resource to the history of veterinary dentistry, information on the evolution of teeth, practical dental therapeutics, and oral descriptions for each of the more than three hundred species included in the book. Zoo and Wild Animal Dentistry covers a wide range of zoo and wild species, including cats, bears, primates, dogs, raccoons, weasels, hyenas, marsupials, herbivores, edentates, sea mammals, birds, reptiles, and more. This important resource:

• Offers a comprehensive reference to oral pathology and dental therapy in captive and wild animals
• Highlights oral health to promote overall health
• Includes information on the most recent advances in the field
• Contains a groundbreaking resource for the dental care of exotic animals

Written for zoo and wildlife caretakers and veterinarians, veterinary dentists, veterinary technicians, and veterinary students, Zoo and Wild Animal Dentistry is a practical resource that has information for the dental care of a wide range of animal species that are all too often neglected.

Part I
A History of Veterinary Dentistry and of Teeth, and Dental Therapy of Wild Animals

1
History of Veterinary Dentistry, Including Development of Oral and Dental Treatment of Wild and Zoo, Safari Park and Refuge Animals

Colin E. Harvey

Surgery and Dentistry School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

This review is limited to a narrow definition of dentistry – conditions affecting the teeth, periodontium and jaws, and treatment of these structures. Mention of the major infectious oral diseases that affect wild, as well as domestic herbivores, such as viral stomatitis for example, are not included.

Veterinary dental history can be considered as having two major periods, the first in which the horse was the focus of most attention, because of its importance for transportation, mechanical power, military use and sport. The jaws and teeth were important because bits are used to control speed and direction of motion in horses. The internal combustion engine was invented in the mid‐1850s; by the early 1990s, this form of transportation and mechanical power was rapidly displacing the horse and, as a result, equine dentistry no longer has the critical societal importance it once had.

The second period is ongoing, and is largely based on application of human dental procedures to pet domestic animals. As experience with these procedures, initially in dogs, grew, they started to be applied to non‐domesticated species by a pioneering group of human dentists and veterinarians. Experience with dental treatment of food animals is largely limited to management of tooth loss in sheep.

We only have a very incomplete glimpse of what was known about animal dentistry in the ancient world, because much of the records have been lost. The fire in the largest library of the ancient world, at Alexandria in 48 BCE, was catastrophic – 700 000 volumes were lost.

The ancient Greeks produced several important veterinary manuscripts, such as “The Veterinary Art, Inspection of Horses,” by Simon of Athens (430 BCE), which includes an accurate description of eruption times and aging of horses by examination of the teeth. Aristotle's “History of Animals'” (333 BCE) also includes a section on aging by teeth of horses, and comments on periodontal diseases in horses.

The Roman Empire produced some practical veterinary material, though much of it was copied from Greek sources. Around 400 CE, Chiron wrote a series of books on animals; Book VI includes material on tumors of the jaw, diseases of the teeth and management of fractured jaws, and Book VIII includes a description of the dentition. “The Veterinary Art” by Vegetius (450–500 CE) is the major Roman veterinary contribution; it describes use of splints for managing broken jaws, and aging of horses by teeth; this manuscript was translated and printed as a book one thousand years later, in 1528 – one of the first veterinary books printed.

Written c550–580 CE, originally in Sanskrit, the work of Ippocras was translated into Greek or Arabic in the ninth century, then from Arabic to Latin – it is now known to exist only as a fifteenth‐century manuscript in Latin; it includes a section on determining the age of the horse by examining the teeth, and vices and bit injuries, also an operation for “chesel,” which is extraction or shortening of the tushes (canines) and corner incisors to accommodate the bit.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• About Peter Emily
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: A History of Veterinary Dentistry and of Teeth, and Dental Therapy of Wild Animals
• Part II: Pertinent Dental Information, of 352 Species most often treated in Sanctuaries and Zoos
• Appendix I: Appendix ITaxonomy
• Appendix II: Appendix IITypes of Dentition* [1–3]
• Appendix III: Appendix IIIDental Formulas
• Appendix IV: Appendix IVFeeding Adaptations
• Glossary of Dental Terms
• Further Reading
• Index
• End User License Agreement