Dentures May Save Thai Elephant's Life
Posted on: Wednesday, 7 January 2004, 06:00 CST
An aging elephant in Thailand has gotten a new lease on life after a vet fitted the animal with custom-made dentures, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
Morakot, an 80-year-old pachyderm in captivity at a park in the western province of Kanchanaburi, had been unable to chew her food because she had lost her teeth, the Bangkok Post quoted Dr. Somsak Jitniyom as saying.
Kept alive with injected saline solution, vitamins and antibiotics, she had become so weak that she had collapsed four times and needed to be supported by a sling of chains hung from a tree, he said.
Elephants have four sets of teeth in a lifetime, but after they lose their last molar they cannot chew properly and often die from malnutrition or starvation.
Somsak fashioned the ailing elephant a U-shaped denture about six inches wide and six inches long, made from stainless steel, silicone and plastic, and fitted her with it Monday while she was under sedation.
Somsak was uncertain if anyone else has previously made dentures for elephants, although animal dentists have in the past fitted replacement tusks on the beasts.
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