"Miss Curtis Odontogram Dental Ledger Card 1918-1928 C.R. Sheppard Co. NY"
$ 11.09
Description
"Miss Curtis Odontogram Dental Ledger Card 1918-1928 C.R. Sheppard Co. NY". The record is a single sheet, printed on aged paper that has taken on a warm yellow tone consistent with its early twentieth-century origin. It was originally part of a professional office filing system, as indicated by the binder holes along one edge. This item is a vintage combination dental record and payment ledger, documenting the treatment history of a patient named Miss Curtis over a ten-year period from 1918 to 1928. The record is a single sheet, printed on aged paper that has taken on a warm yellow tone consistent with its early twentieth-century origin. It was originally part of a professional office filing system, as indicated by the binder holes along one edge. The sheet has been folded along a horizontal line, and the paper shows slight brittleness at the edges along with general wear and creasing from long-term storage. The front of the sheet features a pre-printed ledger form from The C.R. Sheppard Company of New York, with columns for date, chart number, time, debit, and credit entries. This side of the sheet is blank, suggesting that the financial recording portion of this card was either entered on a separate page or that the primary record of services was kept on the reverse. The true historical value of this item lies on the reverse side, which contains a detailed odontogram, or tooth chart. This diagram uses period markings to record the condition of Miss Curtis’s teeth, including notations for restorations, missing teeth, and planned or completed dental work. The chart provides a visual snapshot of early restorative dentistry, with markings that likely indicate gold fillings, porcelain inlays, or amalgam work, as well as extractions and other treatments common to the period. This record is an excellent example of early dental record-keeping, combining clinical charting with administrative accounting in a single document. It offers insight into the practice of a private dentist serving a patient over a decade during a transformative era in dental medicine, when radiography was becoming more common and materials like gold and porcelain were standard for high-quality restorative work. As a piece of medical ephemera, this item will appeal to collectors of dental antiques, historians of medicine, and genealogists researching the Curtis family. The combination of a named patient, a dated treatment timeline, and a detailed odontogram makes this a substantial and visually informative artifact from the early twentieth-century dental office. PLEASE NOTE: This item may be shipped according to how it was originally folded.
