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346 THIRD PERIOD-MODERN TIMES

credit of having had a happy idea and of having endeavored to put it into
practice; but the merit of having given life to the idea, abandoned for
so many years by him w^ith whom it originated, is exclusively due to
Dubois de Chemant; he is, therefore, with reason considered the true
inventor of mineral teeth.
Dubois de Chemant, however, was so unjust as to take the whole
credit of the invention for himself, declaring in his writings that the
original idea had been exclusively his own, and was in no way due to
Duchateau.
In 1789 Dubois de Chemant made his invention known to the Academy
of Sciences and to the Faculty of Medicine of Paris; both pronounced in
favor of it, and in consequence of the opinion given by such high author-
ities, he soon after obtained an inventor's patent from Louis XVI.
Dubois' successes now aroused the envy of many of his colleagues, and
especially of Dubois Foucou, the king's dentist, who, together with the
greater part of the dentists of Paris and the chemist Duchateau, brought
an action against him, accusing him of having usurped the invention
of Duchateau, and demanding, for this reason, the annulment of the in-
ventor's patent that had been granted him. But the law courts, in an
opinion dated January 26, 1792, rejected the demand for annulment,
recognized the patent of invention as fully valid, and condemned Dubois
Foucou, Duchateau, and their confederates to the costs of the judgment.
Paris being at that time in full revolution, Dubois de Chemant was
induced to emigrate to England. He established himself in London, and
there obtained a patent without much difficulty, according him the
exclusive right, for fourteen years, of manufacturing dentures of mineral
paste.
Dubois de Chemant wrote several pamphlets in order to make known
to the public this new kind of dental prosthesis and its advantages; some
of these were published in Paris (1788, 1790, 1824), and others during his
long residence in London, where he remained from 1792 to 1817. In
these pamphlets he upholds the great superiority of "the incorruptible
teeth of mineral paste" over all other kinds of artificial teeth; he calls
special attention to the fact that teeth of bone, ivory, and oi every other
organic substance whatever gradually become spoilt through the action of
the saliva, of oral heat, of food and drink, etc., and not only lose their
primitive color and assume a dirty hue, most unpleasant to the eye, but
ac(|uire a bad odor, at times quite insupportable, becoming, besides, a
cause of irritation to the gums and the mucous membrane of the mouth,
not to speak of their gradual softening and wearing out, which renders
them unserviceable after a certain time. All these disadvantages were
avoided by using the new prosthetic material, this being incorruptible
and inalterable.