This pair of steel forceps has a straight beak for the removal of the front teeth, incisors and bicuspids. The basic shape of dental forceps has not changed radically in over one hundred-fifty years. Harris notes in the Dictionary of Dental Science, "they [forceps] have, since about 1830, been rapidly taking the place of the [tooth] key of Garengeot, in all its improved and modified forms".
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