Dental Notation Guide

The Palmer notation is a system used by dentists to associate information to a specific tooth. Although supposedly superseded by the FDI World Dental Federation notation, it overwhelming continues to be the preferred method used by dental students and practitioners in the United Kingdom.^[1] It was originally termed the “Zsigmondy system” after the Austrian dentist Adolf Zsigmondy who developed the idea in 1861, using a Zsigmondy cross to record quadrants of tooth positions.^[2]. Adult teeth were numbered 1 to 8, and the child primary dentition (also called deciduous, milk or baby teeth) were depicted with a quadrant grid using Roman numerals I, II, III, IV, V to number the teeth from the midline distally. Palmer changed this to A, B, C, D, E. -Source