Dental evidence of congenital syphilis in a 19th century cemetery from the mid-hudson valley

Abstract

The purpose of this communication is to provide a description of a pattern of enamel defects that are consistent with a diagnosis of congenital syphilis. While there is an abundance of literature documenting the skeletal manifestations of congenital syphilis, the description, and particularly the depiction, of the dental stigmata associated with this disease are rare in the paleopathological literature. This report describes enamel defects in the unerupted permanent dentition of two subadults recovered from a historic cemetery in Newburgh, New York. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.