History of Dentistry: Horrifying Tools and Curious Facts of Early Dentistry
It might be frightening at times, but there is nothing to fear. You can check how things used to be. Studies have shown that dentistry dates back to the early 18th century.
Other studies show that ancient Egyptians practiced dentistry countless times, which resulted in painful moments of sheer agony. The first recorded mention of a dentist comes from around 2500 BC. His name was Hesyre (pronunciation Hesy-Ra). He was the chief of the available dental group at that time.
Have you ever thought about what dentists were like before modern technology?
Pain and tooth decay are problems we no longer face, but they have plagued human society for thousands, possibly millions, of years. These problems affect humans and also impact pets, wild animals, and anything with teeth. Toothaches are a common problem that dentists can address properly.
Everything has changed nowadays. Today, we will start our time machine to show you some interesting facts.
Painkillers Back in the Day
Dentists worldwide strive to keep teeth healthy and pain-free. However, patients in the past endured significant suffering without the benefit of anesthesia. They often lacked knowledge about what to expect during and after procedures.
We should admire the pioneers who devised ways to improve our oral treatments. Thanks to technological advancements, dentistry has changed drastically over the past few decades. Before effective painkillers and anesthetics, patients faced agonizing pain and discomfort. They had no option but to take a powerful pill to relieve their suffering.
In those days, someone held down patients while a stranger pulled out barbaric tools to extract teeth. This process must have been terrifying. A brief history reveals how far dentistry has come to achieve the beautiful results we now associate with a Hollywood smile.
Egyptians
Initially, people perceived dentistry as a trivial task that no one considered necessary. The ancient Egyptians performed dental operations using crude methods. They often stuffed herbs, plants, and minerals into patients’ mouths to address dental issues. These operations were quite disturbing and likely caused more discomfort than relief.
Fortunately, modern dentistry now emphasizes pain-free procedures. Innovations in tools and techniques have transformed the field. Today, various intuitive devices and medications ease patients’ discomfort before, during, or after their operations.
Thanks to these advancements, we can enjoy the benefits of modern dentistry without the fear and pain experienced by our ancestors. As we look back on the history of dental care, we can appreciate the progress that has led us to this remarkable point in oral health.
The Horrific Ancient Egyptian Dentistry
The history of dentistry starts with the ancient Egyptians, who faced challenges from climate and a limited diet. Their diet, primarily grains, with few vegetables and minimal protein, offered little nutritional benefit. Without proper hygiene practices, they were unaware of the risks of bacteria from poor utensils. If you smiled at someone from that era, they’d likely wonder about your dental health routine.
Diet and Its Impact on Oral Health
Ancient Egyptians consumed metallic materials, minerals, and other substances in their food. These items, consumed by all—enslaved people, kings, and emperors—caused widespread tooth decay, cavities, and various oral health issues. Sand often contaminated their food, adding to dental problems and other health complications. The limited diet, primarily grains, lacked essential nutrients that could have supported dental and overall health, leaving many with weakened teeth and increased dental issues.
Primitive Dental Surgeries and Tooth Extractions
Debates continue over whether ancient Egyptians performed accurate dental surgeries. While evidence is minimal, some believe these early operations included primitive tooth extractions. Three cases suggest Egyptians practiced dental procedures, using gold or metallic wiring on healthy teeth for prosthetics or aesthetics. They used a drill-like tool, non-sterile and painfully invasive, to anchor prosthetics by piercing gums and weaving wires through teeth.
The Bow Drill: A Tool of Early Dentistry
The Egyptian “bow drill” was essential in these early procedures. This tool operated manually without electricity, resembling a mini bow and arrow. A string tied to a sharp spike rotated rapidly to drill teeth. This prolonged process was bloody and highly uncomfortable, with no guarantee of success. It highlights patients’ significant discomfort, as early dental practices focused more on functionality than comfort.
Principal Dental Procedures
Ancient Egyptians relied on alcohol, produced as early as 4000 BC, to dull the pain. Even emperors would drink potent liquids to numb the experience. Alcohol served as one of the few anesthetics available, helping patients endure the pain of extractions and drilling. This crude pain relief method underscores the difficulties early societies faced without modern medicine.
Over time, Egyptians refined their tools, responding to demands for safer and more precise instruments. Despite manufacturing difficulties, they developed tools for various surgeries, including prosthetics and cavity cleaning. Brain surgeries also emerged, with surprising success rates. These advancements in tool-making reflected the Egyptian culture’s commitment to medical progress, laying a foundation for future dental practices.
The Evolution Towards Modern Dentistry
The Egyptians’ persistence in improving dental care laid the foundation for modern dentistry. Techniques evolved to minimize pain and increase comfort—luxuries our ancestors could only imagine. Through these early, often painful experiments, dentistry advanced from a crude practice to a refined medical field, shaping the effective and pain-free procedures we benefit from today.
The Era of Rome
By 700 B.C., the Etruscans had already succeeded with dental implants, a practice still in use today. Using animal teeth, bones, and gold fillings, they created implants with the materials available, though quite different from modern implants. These early materials may lack today’s durability, yet they served as pioneering solutions for missing teeth and established the idea of replacement.
Modern dental implants involve metal fixtures designed to last a lifetime. Today, dental implants fuse with bone over several months, providing a durable and permanent solution. Implants now set the standard for replacing missing teeth, all thanks to the Etruscans, whose early methods laid the groundwork.
Pain Relief and Aesthetic Innovations
The Etruscans found ways to relieve pain by inserting metal into cavities to protect nerves. This early form of dental care prevented pain from exposed pulp and nerve endings, shielding them from debris and irritation. Additionally, they used animal teeth and bones to create the first oral cosmetics, which, while temporary, looked surprisingly natural.
The Etruscans’ legacy in dental implants and pain relief methods underscores their lasting impact on modern dentistry. Thanks to their innovations, they set the stage for the sophisticated and effective dental solutions we enjoy today.
European Strength
Until the early 1800s, people improvised methods for surgeries and dental procedures with the primary goal of keeping patients alive. They had no formal doctors or dentists and no established sanitary practices. Improvisation was essential for treating any ailment.
In those days, the medical community didn’t realize they should wash their hands before attending to patients. People lived with pain and discomfort daily, relying on tooth extraction for severe toothaches. Barbers, blacksmiths, and even inexperienced “dentists” carried out these operations, which were often painful and unsanitary.
Crude Methods for Tooth Extractions
Tooth extractions required the patient to hold their head between the barber’s knees or be held down by family. Without anesthesia, these operations caused patients extreme pain, and many fainted from the agony. Tools such as wrenches, turnkeys, and hammers helped remove teeth, though this method risked injury and infection.
Back then, dentists displayed extracted teeth in their windows to advertise their services. Extraction was the go-to solution, even for minor toothaches, but many patients suffered from infections due to unsanitary tools and practices.
The Spread of Dental Fear
As citizens noticed the rising death toll linked to infections from dental extractions, fear spread. News of deaths and illnesses from these procedures traveled across Europe, leading people to avoid any dental or medical operations. The fear worsened as people associated extractions with life-threatening risks.
In the 18th century, sugar became a staple in wealthy diets, leading to a rise in cavities and extractions. Embarrassed by missing teeth, wealthy individuals began exploring dental implants from donor teeth. Dentists attempted to place extracted teeth from donors into patients, marking early experimentation in dental implants.
Early dentistry involved crude and painful methods. Today, dental procedures prioritize patient comfort and hygiene, a far cry from the improvised practices of the past.
Sugar: The Number One Thread
In a turn-of-the-tide situation, the poor were viewed as a healthy overall population because of their excellent oral habits, one of which was the very little use of sugar in their foods because they could not afford it. Many of the poor would start selling their teeth because of their excellent overall health conditions.
By selling their teeth, people would have a little extra cash to pay the debts they usually were behind on. Healthy human teeth were slowly becoming a commodity that many could have.
Newspapers everywhere started offering high amounts of cash to anyone willing to dispose of their healthy teeth for money. Ads everywhere promoted teeth to the public. Only the wealthy could afford healthy, live teeth, but the poor were the only donors available, so the economic balance suddenly changed. Everyone started viewing this as an opportunity and benefited from all the chaos that sugar started.
Corpses were not being buried like they were regularly accustomed to. The teeth of the bodies started flooding the market as a means of helping the people that we were alive. And that required healthy teeth no matter where we’re from.
Middle and Lower Classes
They started to benefit from this situation as well; they could afford a decent pair of teeth. Grave robbers started to appear everywhere, and cemeteries everywhere were being robbed. Families began to worry about what would happen to them if they were to die and suddenly be taken away.
As time passed, sugary foods and tobacco products became available for the wealthy and the middle class. Their consumption became a massive problem because of the appearance of infections and cavities among the high—and low-class populations. Dentures were then created and presented to the population as a means of replacing all of their teeth.
From the poor to the wealthy population, they all viewed this as a reliable solution to missing teeth, as many would lose their teeth at around forty. A well-known president who started to utilize dentures was the first president of the United States of America, the father of the red, white, and blue nation, George Washington.
George Washington Dentures
Everyone wanted to be in on the president wearing dentures once the population saw the president wearing dentures. Dentures were relatively new and were made out of corpse’s teeth, and it was quite a struggle to speak with these dentures, let alone eat.
Breathing became a problem as the dentures were not correctly placed and would slide from one place to another. Time went on, and much of the American population started to become more conscious of the fact that utilizing a dead person’s teeth was not as attractive as once thought. They were unhappy with the short-term results, forcing dentists to use other materials similar to human teeth to replace the unclean dentures that were first introduced to the public.
They developed various solutions to the fact that many people wanted and deserved a more suitable product. Dentures would be modified to fit people’s needs now and again.
Coming back to the 18th century, dentists, barbers, blacksmiths, and many more workers would replace a rookie dentist’s place because of their lack of time involved in a very stressful task. So, dentists and barbers were considered to belong to the same group of workers. Because of this, highly skilled and professional dentists consider themselves to be an elite group of individuals.
They knew how to attend to a patient’s needs. They wanted to be regarded as a different branch altogether, not to be compared to regular people with little experience in dentistry. Those self-proclaimed individuals viewed and identified themselves as highly efficient physicians, thus creating and paving the way for dentistry to become a very distinct branch of medicine that belonged in its own field.
Treatments
In this case, dental implants, tooth extractions, bone grafting, etc., are pain-free operations if adequately taken care of. In the day, dentists would hang all of the teeth they extracted from their patients by their window to promote and advertise their service to anyone willing to enter and get their teeth removed.
It didn’t matter if anyone was experiencing discomfort or a simple toothache; extractions were the way to go. As we mentioned before, many of these operations were successful, but many experienced agonizing pain or infections.
Between their teeth because of an unsuccessful operation or simply because of the condition of the tools. They were used on a patient who was relatively dirty or used on another patient. Remember, back in the day, people didn’t know they had to wash their hands before any operation.
In the end, not all of these extractions were successful, which culminated in taking a toll on the rise of deaths caused because of these operations. Many citizens were ill or would die because of an unknown illness, natural causes, suicide, accidents, etc.
These didn’t reach the number of deaths caused by dental operations. Deaths started increasing because complications after the patients’ extraction or uncomplicated infections became significant infectious diseases that culminated in the person’s death because they were not taken into proper treatment.
Many people noticed the number of deaths caused by this; doubt among citizens began to spread across Europe. And the news would start to arrive all over the towns. Panic would cross from city to city, and citizens would evade any operation, whether oral or body operation. Sugar was unavailable or out of reach for those with a low economic status. Sugar consumption was slowly becoming increasingly popular amongst the rich or anyone with high economic status.
18th Century
During this century, it was apparent that sugar was being implemented in many foods as it became a vital ingredient for the daily diet of those who could afford it. Its increased usage in the citizen’s daily diets provoked the rise of cavities, which was everyone’s worst nightmare if they required an extraction.
Many of those in the wealthy population became very unhappy with their teeth because of sugary foods. They feared appearing in public and being made fun of because of those missing teeth. Around the same period, dentists and surgeons started experimenting with implants with other people’s teeth placed in the empty area. These implants were obtained by a donor’s tooth, who didn’t want anything to do with the tooth extracted.
French Determination at Its Best
The history of dentistry was modified and changed forever by a person who revolutionized dentistry. A French man named Pierre Fauchard was a professional physician. Who is credited with becoming the father and creator of modern dentistry, which is still practiced today?
Creator of the very first book that covered all fields of dentistry.
With very detailed tips and procedures that mentioned and taught everything related to dental anatomy. With methods that were modified and are still being implemented to this day. Accompanied utilizing operation and helpful restoration tips.
He created exceptional tools and improved all dental instruments. Many people thought tooth extraction was the only solution to toothaches or any discomfort anyone could have been experiencing for an extensive period. These extractions were used for everything; in other words, dentures were the solution after getting all your teeth pulled.
Pierre Fauchard
Introduced one of our modern-day solutions to cavities or other similar situations, which, to this day, is considered a breakthrough for modern dentistry. Dental fillings are a simple yet effective way to treat that problem. Nowadays, the materials that compose those teeth fillings are much more effective and durable.
One of his ideas was to attend to patients on a comfortable chair and not treat them on the ground, afraid of swallowing a tooth. Before modern-day dentistry, many people were concerned about a worm causing their cavities, yet Pierre Fauchard put that long-awaited answer to the theory to rest. He rapidly concluded that all sugary foods or beverages contributed to cavities or dental decay.
All of his contributions revolutionized dentistry into what we know today. His ideas resulted in positive recommendations and only helped dentists push boundaries to what was thought of as a simple solution: extraction.
One of his ideas, which is still being debated to this day but was replaced with mouthwash, was using human urine as a means of eliminating oral bacteria that accumulate over time. He recommended using your very own urine to wash and clean your teeth because of its proven properties that help kill harmful bacteria in your mouth. Fauchard knew that urine contained ammonia that could potentially eradicate oral bacteria.
Which offers its attributes to its properties that are beneficial and provide a positive result in overall health care. But rely on using an everyday old mouthwash that doesn’t leave you with smelly breath and won’t cause nauseating effects. Mouthwashes have also created formulas that don’t burn any parts of your mouth and don’t cause a burning sensation.
Advancements in Modern-Day Dentistry at its Peek
Modern dentistry uses digital X-rays to provide a better view of teeth that seem to be causing problems. Ancient dentists wished they had digital X-rays, which allowed them to pinpoint the exact tooth causing problems.
Dental implants are a procedure that no longer requires painful wrench pulling or tugging with unique and helpful tools that our technology allows us to create, especially with the ever-so-popular 3D printer. These are tools that the blacksmiths were talking about a wish they had. However, with technology growing and expanding ever so quickly. It’s impossible to track every essential new invention provided by dentists exploring new dentistry methods.
Tomorrow’s dentists will arrive faster than expected. They will leave our modern-day dentistry behind. Dentistry might evolve into a new branch in the field. Discovering, innovating, exploring, and inventing will create a new world for future generations.
All these stories of people dying, agonizing, suffering, etc., will be a thing of the past. We should be thankful for the people who didn’t want but needed these surgeries to allow themselves to go through all of that.
Thanks to all those dentists who pioneered their way into dentistry.
