Our society put s a very strong emphasis on having an aesthetically pleasing smile. Culturally acceptable smiles consist of white, straight teeth.
There are many other countries in which the aesthetics of dental work is not important and dentistry did not start as an aesthetic trade. The practice of dental work dates back to as far as 7000 BC.
The first records of dentistry are very crude compared to the technology we have today. Many dread the experience of visiting the dentist nowadays, but taking a trip to the ancient dentists meant being worked on with a bow drill.
The bow drills were very crude tools, lacking a credible amount of precision. Patients living in this era of dental work would never dream of going to the dentist unless they were in excruciating amounts of pain.
The dental work was surprisingly reliable and effective, and did an excellent job of relieving tooth pain. Preventative dentistry was not in existence during this era.
In the 18th century BC the Code of Hammurabi has two references to dental extractions as punishments. So, dental treatment could not have been a very pleasant experience for the majority of people.
Around 5000 BC we find that the Sumerians believed a "tooth worm" was the cause of dental problems. This "tooth worm" was thought to have found its way into teeth and after it was in someone's teeth it would eat its way through the teeth.
This is an easily explainable theory because many times tooth decay comes in the form of very small holes on the teeth. If a man in ancient times were to see the small holes, knowing nothing about chemistry or the processes of decay a worm would be a perfectly rational conclusion.
The "tooth worm" theory was not only in existence in Samaria, but it has also been recorded in India, Egypt, Japan and China. Homer even wrote about this pesky corroding worm in some of his works.
Even in the 1300's the surgeon Guy del Chauliac will believed and taught others that tooth decay was a result of the "tooth worm" finding its way into ones teeth. It was not until dentists began to understand the chemical reactions and processes that take place in and on teeth that they threw out the "tooth worm" theory.
Although the understanding of the decaying processes was not common or accepted knowledge, there were some ancient Greek scholars that included their theories on these processes in their works. Hippocrates and Aristotle wrote both wrote about the pattern of eruption, decay and treatments for decay and gum disease.
These scholars also had opinions on what they believed should be done for the previously mentioned conditions. They believed that a dentist could use a wire to stabilize loose teeth and even fractured jaws.
The early scholars also believed that the best way to remove teeth is by using forceps. These practices were adopted by some early dentists.
The Greek scholars were not the only scholars that wrote about or studied teeth. Cornelius Celsus was a medical writer in Rome and he wrote extensively or oral diseases as well as dental treatments.
Using the term dentists, is quite a stretch when talking about ancient dentistry. The dental work was often times preformed by the local general physicians and sometimes even the barbers.
The majority of work that a barber would do on a customer's teeth is extraction. Removing a patients tooth would often times alleviate pain and rid the patient of a tooth infection.
By this time doing work on teeth had evolved from using a bow drill, to instead using tools such as the pelican's beak. This tool was similar in shape to a pelican's beak and made reaching into the math and grasping the tooth much easier than using a bow drill.
After the pelican's beak the dental key became very popular. Even smaller than the pelican's beak, the dental key gave the physician plenty of room to work within the mouth of his patients.
Dental work continued to grow in popularity but was not taught as a profession until much later. It wasn't until 1685 that the first textbook teaching about dental work was released.
Charles Allen released this textbook in English, and it was called "Operator for the Teeth". Between 1650 and 1800 dentistry finally began to develop as the science that it is today.
Pierre Fauchard is believed to be the father of modern dentistry. Without the men that were willing to practice dentistry and the patients willing to be treated, our dentistry would have never reached the level it has.
Author Resource:-
Terry Daniels is a former dental assistant and has authored hundreds of articles relating to oral health. He worked for a implant dentist in Fort Lauderdale before becoming a guest dental lecturer for the past 15 years.
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