Charles Stent Charles Stent Charles Stent (1807–1885) was a 19th-century English dentist notable for his advances in the field of denture making. In 1847, Edwin Truman introduced gutta-percha as a material for making dental impressions; however, this was unsatisfactory for several reasons, including its tendency to distort upon removal from the patient's mouth, and to shrink upon cooling. In 1856, Stent added several other materials to the gutta-percha, notably stearine, which markedly improved the plasticity of the material as well as its stability. He also added talc as an inert filler to give more body to the material, and red colouring. The
Stent should be differentiated from a shunt. A shunt is a tube that connects two previously unconnected parts of the body to allow fluid to flow between them. Stents and shunts can be made of similar materials but perform two different tasks. As Ariel Roguin describes in his paper "Stent: The Man and Word Behind the Coronary Metal Prosthesis", the current acceptable origin of the word stent is that it derives from the name of a dentist, Charles Thomas Stent, notable for his advances in the field of denture-making. He was born in Brighton, England, on October 17, 1807, was a