The phrase dental gold, or gold dust, brings to mind the image of the Old West, and the weather beaten old man with a big grin and a gold tooth. The origins of this practice is not from any real medical basis, but the medieval belief that if something is rare, beautiful or tastes good, it therefore must be good for you. Therefore, it was quite common for doctors in the medieval period to use rare or precious metals and powders, such as gold dust, in their treatments for a wide variety of medical symptoms. Even some alternative medicine practioners today use such things as waters with gold or silver molecules, known as colloid gold, added as healing treatments.
As it turns out in modern scientific study, certain gold salts and radioisotopes of gold do in fact have anti-inflammatory properties. Finding that gold alloys with just the right mix of strength and malleability to help in tooth restorations, dentists began using dental gold, an alloy blend of gold and palladium, in crafting crowns and permanent bridges.
Unlike ceramics, which are difficult to craft into ideal fits for each individual and would crack with enough pressure, gold’s unique properties allowed it to be malleable enough for a perfect delicate fit over the tooth, and yet still maintain the strength of a metal, which very quickly made it the preferred material to use in dental work.
Today, one of the biggest dental restoration labs in the world is Gold Dust Dental Lab, which is pioneering new ways of blending ceramics and other alloys and materials into more realistic, longer-lasting, and better fitting crowns, veneers, and dentures. The name is obviously a nod to the historical uses of gold dust in dentistry, helping to improve dental and overall health of individuals for centuries. This just goes to show that maybe the medieval physicians really were onto something.