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When Professors René Soulet (Clermont-Ferrand) and André Besombes (Paris) made their first movable appliance in rubber, and named it the “conformer”, they were far from imaging the observations they would make in the following months. At the beginning of the 1950’s, their only aim was to offer young patients, an alternative to fixed appliances, during summer holidays. They hoped that the flexible appliance would maintain the results achieved with the fixed appliances. They were surprised, when the children came back in autumn, also to notice how not only were results maintained but there was a favourable evolution - this was true for dental alignment of arches and for antero-posterior, transversal and vertical directions. This occurred in enough cases to be significant.
Due to their scientific training, Professors Soulet and Besombes devoted themselves to understanding the mechanism of action of their conformer. They
then applied their conclusions to the development of a range of active appliances on more particular pathologies. These multi-functional activators,
were well known for years under the name of gutters Soulet Besombes or SB.
In 1983, the meeting between Professor Besombes and a young dental surgeon from Montpellier, Dr. Mathieu – who will later work with Dr. Montaud –play a key role for the spread of the dental therapies with functional appliances. Their ten year partnership, made up of meetings and investigations together with other famous specialists –Professor Pedro Planas from Barcelona, Dr, Nelson Annunciato, neuro-anatomist from Sao Paulo, Mrs Beatriz Padovan - will give life to another kind of appliances: “Square” APFs.
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